LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Mrs. SARAH P. WALSWORTH. Received October, 1894. Accessions No. r*7 ^ / Class No. .................. " y o. J> vx i* ", a^A^H- MOSAICS. A.VTel44rtnr 8 LithX a? PuUor St.T Y MOSAIC S. BY THE AUTHOR OF FOR TTTE SOLITARY," Etc. - " We have been at a great feast of languages, And have stolen all the scraps." SHAKSPEARE. lclcnck5aundeD. NEW YORK : S SCRIBNER, 124 GRAND STREET. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY. MDCCCLIX. ENTEUED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by CHARLES SCRIBNER, In the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. W. H. T:NSON. Stereotypes GEO . RCSSELL & Table of Contents. EPISTLE TO THE READER, 7 AUTHOR-CRAFT, I3 YOUTH AND AGE, 76 "THE HUMAN FACE DIVINE," 127 THE WITCHERY OF WIT, . . . . . . 1 69 SINGLE BLESSEDNESS, . . . . . . .192 ORIGIN OF CELEBRATED BOOKS, . . . . .259 NIGHT AND DAY, 2 pg FAME, . 32I THE MAGIC OF Music, 3 2 THE BRIGHT SIDE, 3 8 3 Epistle to the Reader. Worthy Reader : IN good faith I am fain to confess with Charles Lamb, that " my reading hath been lamentably desultory and immethodical odd and out-of-the-way" albeit I ought grate fully to acknowledge an acquaintance with some of the selectest and most pleasurable of " men, women and books." More over, it hath been my wont ofttimes to retreat from the illu sive shows of the gay, yet guileful world, and seek some quiet nook in a library, or shady and sequestered by-path, that I might muse over whatsoever I had read, seen or heard : for, sooth to say, I have not been so unthrifty as not to treasure up sundry choice facts and fancies in the storehouse of memory. Yet memory, not always faithful to her trust, but, methinks, resembling too oft a wayward and capricious sprite, defying our chase, hath moved me to note down from time to time viii Epistle to the Reader. such divers goodly things as I have gathered, so that at length I have accumulated no mean assemblage of notabilia and memorabilia, all which (I say it covertly in thine ear) I lov ingly cherish. Furthermore, honest friend, having found no little enter tainment myself, in conning over these heterogeneous collec tanea of my portfolio, I venture to conclude that their pre sentation to thee in a classified form might not prove unac ceptable. This essay, as indicated by its title, will be found many-hued and prismatic, comprising the essence of many minds concentrated upon given subjects. Taste hath been said to differ with the objects of taste ; the topics discussed, therefore, have been studiously varied; so that if one should fail to felicitate thy fancy, another, perchance, may charm and beguile thee as radiant flowers entice, some by their fragrant breath, others by their blushing beauty. It hath been affirmed that "the man whose book is filled with quotations, but creeps along the shores of author ship, as if he were afraid to trust himself to the free compass of reasoning ;" yet saith another wit of olden time, " I would rather defend such authors by a different allusion, and ask, whether honey is the worse by being gathered from many flowers?" "Quotation, sir, is a good thing," quoth Dr. Johnson, " there is a community of mind in it." Another notable scribe* also recommendeth the concentrating o f the * Swift. Epistle to the Reader. ix diffused rays of wit and learning in authors, so as to make them point with warmth and quickness upon the reader s im agination. Furthermore, hath not D Israeli, Montaigne and Southey, with Bacon, Burton, and others of illustrious mem ory thus indulged their vagrant fancy, and gratified their read ers thereby ? In like manner, albeit very imperfectly, have I essayed to garner up these " gleaned thoughts of wise spirits," which have been gained from "almost every latitude and longitude, and sometimes from the opposite poles of thought." I have somewhere read that that writer doth the most good who giveth his reader the most knowledge, and taketh from him the least time : and certes in this degenerate age of un fruitful reading, it may not be deemed an act of great temerity, modestly to present something that shall savor of the utile et dulce. Perchance it may repel the weak ; it will arouse and attract the stronger, and increase their strength by making them exert it. " In the sweat of the brow, is the mind, as well as the body, to eat its bread."* Worthy Montaigne hath quaintly compared his book to " a thread that binds together the flowers of others, and that by incessantly pouring the waters of a few good old authors into his sieve, some drops fall upon his paper." I, forsooth, have sought to emulate his industry in garnering up * Guesses at Truth. Epistle to the Reader. " Some odds and ends, With homely truths, too trite to be sublime ; And many a moral scattered here and there Not very new, nor yet the worse for wear." in fine, the following pages comprise the selections, excerpts, pleasant passages, pencillings, jottings-down, and occasional memoranda of much miscellaneous reading ; the pleasure-toils of leisure intervals snatched from the hours devoted to the sterner duties of life. They may seem desultory chapters ; if so, they may suit desultory readers ; and if thou art of that order, so much the better both for thyself, and the book. " Brevity in writing," according to the modern clerical wit,* " is what charity is to all other virtues righteousness is noth ing without the one, nor authorship without the other." " A verse may find him who a sermon flies, And turn delight into a sacrifice." It hath been my endeavor to infuse into these pages as much of the cayenne of quaint conceit, and the Attic salt of wit, with the more solid elements of ancient lore and philosophic acumen as might comport with true taste ; believing with our modern humorist, f that a " single burst of mirth is worth a whole season full of cries, with melancholy." Pri thee, then, bring with thee a mirthful spirit, and then fall on to what hath * Sydney Smith. t Hood. Epistle to the Reader. xi been spread before -thee. Mayhap, thou wilt catch, while these gladsome, though motley pages pass under thine eye, somewhat of their " sweet infection." " A cheerful philosophy is the best in all seasons, especially in dull weather, since it beguiles one of its gloom." Old Sir Thomas Overbury hath quaintly remarked : " Wit is brushwood judgment, timber ; the one giveth the greatest flame, the other yieldeth the dura- blest heat, and both meeting make the best fire." If, in olden times, quirks and quips, and jokes and jibes were often in dulged at the expense of modest wisdom ; an attempt to combine their good essence, would, methinks, scarce demand apology. What follows, then, hath been hunted up, brushed up, and picked up from heaps of rubbish, from old books and new books, some covered with the dust and cobwebs of literary catacombs some decked with the modern adornments of art and skill some grave, some gay but all possessing something quaint, pungent or picturesque. This tome, which I now, in good faith, commend to thy candor, might have been spun out to much greater extent, did I not agree with a good old divine,* that " a little plot of ground thick sown, is better than a great field, which for the most part of it, lies fallow ; " and with a modern writer,f that " a book should be luminous, but not voluminous." If, peradveriture, these my gleanings from the fertile fields of literature fail to * Norris, of Bemerton. t 0. N. Bovee. xii Epistle to the Reader. add anything to thy well-instructed knowledge, they yet may refresh thy well-stored remembrance, and if either, I have my end, and thou hast my endeavor. Finally, "If in any case these my poore labors may be found instrumental to weede out blacke melancholic, carking cares, harte-griefe from the minde sed hoc magis volo quam expecto Goe forth, childe of my brain-sweat : here I give him up to you, even doe with him what you please, my masters. Some I sup pose, will applaud, commende, cry him up (these are my friendes ;) others, again, will blame, hisse, reprehende in many things, cry down altogether my collections, for crude, inept, putid ; they may call me singular, a pedant, fantastic wordes of reproache in this age, which is all too neoterick and light for my humor." * Thy friend and servant, Fred. Saunders. * Bnrton. M O SA.I OS. AUTHOR-CRAFT. Authors are beings only half of earth They own a world apart from other men ; A glorious realm, given by their fancy birth; Subjects, a sceptre, and a diadem; A fairy land of thought in which sweet bUss Would run to ecstasy in wild delight But that stern Nature drags them, back to this With call imperious, which they may not slight ; And then they traffic with their thoughts to live, And coin their laboring brains for daily bread, Getting scant dross for the rich ore they give, While often with the gift their life is shed. And thus they die, leaving behind a name At once their country s glory and her shame. FRED. WEST. \ N author has been compared to asparagus, on *** the supposition that all that is good about him is his head. "We venture to protest against such a definition, on the plea that much of his value is also to be ascribed to his heart. It is indeed the latter quality which gives to the realm of authorship, its 18 14: Mosaics. highest dignity and value. "Who does not echo the sentiment of ^groit on this point : " One hates an author that s all author fellows In foolscap uniform turned up with ink ; So very anxious, clever, fine and jealous, One don t know what to say to them, or think Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows ; Of coxcombry s worst coxcomb, e en the pink Are preferable to those shreds of paper Those unquenched snuffings of the midnight taper?" Authors, again, have been styled lamps, exhausting themselves to give light to others : to bees, indus triously collecting honey from the flowers, which they treasure up in the hive of books to sweeten and solace life. Author-craft is an imitative as well as a creative art ; an original thinker is one who portrays the works of the great Author of the universe the compiler, one who ingeniously adapts or rearranges the thoughts and illustrations of others ; both in their degree may be said to exhibit creative power. Pseudo-authors are counterfeits and belong not to the true and honorable craft, and should be dealt with according to the laws of felony. Jltfrkgel affirms that, authorship is "According to the spirit in which it is pursued an infamy, a pastime, a day-labor, a handicraft, an art, a science, and a virtue." Much has been written in lau dation of authorship, and mighty and majestic are its glorious achievements: yet Pope was not far wrong when he w^rote : " Authors are judged by strange, capricious rules, The great ones are thought mad, the small ones, fools ; Author-Craft. 15 Yet sure the best are most severely fated For fools are only laughed at wits are hated." |fmolfr, himself a recent illustration of its truth, thus touchingly refers to the infelicities of men of genius : " There is a golden volume yet to be written on the first struggles of forlorn genius in London magnifi cent, miserable, ennobling, degrading London. If all who have suffered would confess their sufferings would show themselves in the stark, shivering squalor in which they first walked her streets would paint the wounds which first bled in her garrets what a book might be placed in the hands of pride ! what stern wholesome rebukes for the selfish sons of fortune ! what sustaining sweetness for the faint of spirit ! How often should we find the lowly comforting the high the ignorant giving lessons to the accomplished the poor of earth aiding and sustaining the richly- endowed !" An author is a kind of anomaly in the human family living apart from his race, and inhabiting an ideal world with feelings and impulses peculiarly his own. With the commonplace things of every day life he has generally but little sympathy anti-social, isolate, and indulging an ascetic exclusiveness that at once induces our mingled pity and admiration. Too often the victim of an insatiate love of applause, he is thus the more sensitive to the caprices of fortune, and of fame. On the other hand, it has been justly remarked by a modern essayist,* that " Authors hold * Whipple. 16 Mosaics. the same relation to the mind of man, that the agricul turist and manufacturer bear to his body ; and by vir tue of their sway over the realms of thought and emo tion, they have exercised a vast influence upon human affairs, which has too often been overlooked or denied by earth s industrial and political sovereigns." J$0ut|}g remarked of the literary character, that " One s cha racter being teres atque rotundus^ is not to be seen all at once. You must know him all round in all moods and all weathers to know him well ; but in the com mon intercourse of the world, men see each other in only one mood see only their manners in society, and hear nothing that comes from any part lying deeper than the larynx. Many people think they are well acquainted with me, who know little more of me than the cut of my jib and the sound of my voice." Jir <&. Dafcr ITgiion: says, that " Authors are the only men we ever really do know the rest of mankind die with only the surface of their character under stood." This sentiment admits of qualification ; for we are told by another literary authority, that the reverse is no less proverbial. With a view to aid the reader in resolving the enigma, we propose to group together a few random characteristic facts connected with the private habits of literary men ; as everything regarding their movements and peculiarities is full of interest. While it has been affirmed that " genius is allied to madness," it is far pleasanter to indulge the opposite view of the subject, with Cljarles ^amb, who, in his beautiful essay on "The Sanity of True Genius," observes : Author-Craft. 17 " So far from the position holding true, that great wit has a necessary alliance with insanity, the greatest wits, on the contrary, will even be found to be the sanest writers. It is impossible for the mind to con ceive of a mad Shakspeare. The greatness of wit, by which the poetic talent is here to be chiefly under stood, manifests itself in the admirable balance of all the faculties. Madness is the disproportion or excess of any one of them." Whatever their social peculiarities or defects, yet, if authors are, in a certain sense, the inspired among men, ought we not to reverence and love them ? If the poet is the interpreter of nature s mysteries, and, by the magic of his pen, and the melody of "his numbers, the prophet of our " Paradise regained," should we not render rightful homage to his power ? Genius is a ray from heaven ; its very name indicates its connec tion with all that is genial upon earth, and its celestial mission is to foster and perpetuate a love of the beau tiful and to multiply the gentle amenities of life. " Prophets and poets were of old, Made in the same celestial mould ; True poets are a saint-like race, And with the gift receive the grace ; Of their own songs the virtue feel, Warmed with an heaven-enkindled zeal." * Poetry has been denned " thought in blossomthe music of thought conveyed in the music of language the art of embalming intellectual or ideal beauty a * Bishop Ken. 18 Mosaics. harmony of the works of nature in the three-leaved book of earth, sea, and sky." And JjTamarime thus further poetizes on the subject: "Poetry is the morning dream of great minds, foreshadowing the future realities of life; it evokes the fantasms of all things before the things themselves appear ; it is the prelude to thought and the precursor of action. Overflowing intellects, like Caesar, Cicero, Brutus, Solon, and Plato, begin by imagination and poetry the exuberance of mental vigor in heroes, statesmen, philosophers, and orators. Sad is his lot, who, once at least in his life, has not been a poet." Bards, or professional poets were called among the Greeks, Ubafes, and among the Romans, Vates. Ossian speaks of a prince who kept one hundred of these minstrels. The chief-bards wore sky-blue gar ments and the insignia of a silver chain. Alexander was accompanied by a favorite bard named Cherylus, who is said to have been rewarded with a piece of gold for every good verse he produced, and a blow for every bad one a double pledge for excellence. Poets have been thus described by a poet : " The hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration ; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present."* Who does not recall ||00b s beautiful lines on the votaries of the muse ? " Blessings, be with them, and eternal praise The poets, who, on earth have made us heirs Of truth, and pure delight, by heavenly lays." * Shelley. Author-Craft. 19 Imagination or ideality has been defined " a compen sation for the miseries of reality," and both have been ascribed to the poet. It has been observed : " Philosophers in all ages have delighted in appealing from this incorrigible world to a creation of their own, where all the evils to which mankind are subjected, should be rectified or mitigated. It was with this feeling that Plato, after the death of Socrates, wrote his " Atlantis." Tacitus, shocked at the profligacy and subjection of his coun trymen, endeavored to shame them by holding up to their imitation the wisdom, virtue, and liberty of the German forests. Sir Thomas More transported himself from the tyranny of Henry VIII. into. Utopia. Har rington established the republican government for which he panted, in his " Oceana ;" and Montesquieu developed his own benevolent views in his fabulous " History of the Troglodytes." This fascinating endowment is not only the essential element of the poet, it is also the solace of his sadness. Thus sings one of our modern minstrels : " It is the gift of Heaven itself; nay, more It gives the good man s best anticipation, And yields its joys at many a poor heart s door; It sweetens bliss, and takes a pang from sorrow ; It forms the beauties of poetic lore ; It bids the heart whose sun is low, to borrow A smile upon the credit of a golden morrow." If poetry and philosophy reveal to us the secret mysteries of nature the high priests of this grand apocalypse, may well challenge our veneration and our 20 Mosaics. love. No wonder that like the ancient seers, their utter ances should become oracular that their songs and symbols should be treasured up in our hearts, and transmitted from sire to son through successive ages. " The author s mind, in all its hallowed riches, Stands a cathedral full of precious things ; Tastefully built in harmonies unbroken, Cloister and aisle, dark crypt and airy tower ; Long-treasured relics in the fretted niches, And secret stores, and heaped-up offerings, Art s noblest gems, with every fruit and flower, Paintings and sculpture, choice imaginings, Its plenitude of wealth and praise betoken : An ever-burning lamp portrays the soul ; Deep music all around enchantment flings ; And God s great presence consecrates the whole." Who amongst us can be insensible to the grand sphere- harmonies of a Shakspeare, or a Goethe ; the cathedral music of a Milton the true home-melodies of a Cowper the genuine lark-notes of a Burns, or the pure pastorals of a Wordsworth ? " There is a pleasure in poetic pains," writes SStorbs- foorilj, " which only poets know." Iprimre, the peasant- poet of England, thus portrays the literary labo ratory : " Lo ! in that quiet and contracted room, Where the lone lamp just mitigates the gloom, Sits a pale student stirred with high desires, With lofty principles and gifted fires ; From time to time, with calm, inquiring looks, He culls the ore of wisdom from his books ; Author-Craft. 21 Clears it, sublimes it, till it flows refined From his alembic crucible of mind." " The mental powers acquire their full robustness when the cheek loses its ruddy hue, and the limbs their elastic step; and pale thought sits on manly brows, and the watchman, as he walks his rounds, sees the student s lamp burning far into the silent night. The finest flowers of genius have grown in an atmosphere where those of nature are prone to droop, and difficult to bring to maturity." * Under what various circumstances have books been composed : " Sometimes in restraint and prison, as when Cer vantes illuminates his cell with the exploits of chivalry ; as when Raleigh sends forth his mind through the barred window, to gather materials for his history of the world ; as when Bunyan, whose fancy could not be seized by bailiff, mounts from the spiked floor to the height of Allegory at a bound, and peoples his deso late jail with imaginary forms and scenery which have become immortal. " Sometimes in blindness, as when Homer, with darkened eyes, yet saw the conflicts of the heroes and gods of old ; as when Milton, with a scarcely pardon able audacity, walked the garden of Paradise, and ventured even into the councils of heaven." f Carlgle remarks : " If an author s life is more agitated and more painful than that of others, it may also be made more spirit-stirring and exalted ; fortune * Dr. Guthrie. t Marsh. 22 Mosaics. may render him unhappy ; it is only himself that can render him despicable. The history of genius has, in fact, its bright side as well as its dark, and if it is dis tressing to survey the misery and debasement of so many gifted men, it is doubly cheering, on the other hand, to reflect on the few, who, amid the temptations and sorrows of life, in all its provinces (and most in theirs) is liable, have travelled through it in calm and virtuous majesty, and are now hallowed in our memo ries, not less for their conduct than for their writings. Such men are the flower of this lower world ; to such, alone, the epithet of great can be applied with its own true emphasis. There is a congruity in their proceed ings which one loves to contemplate. * He who would write heroic poems, should make his whole life an heroic poem. " If authors are the final cause of books, it may also be affirmed that they are themselves greatly indebted to books, gacott quaintly observes : " As water, whether of the dew of heaven or spring of earth, would speedily lose itself in the ground unless collected into conduits and cisterns, so it seemeth this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descend from divine inspiration or spring from human sense, would soon hide itself in oblivion, unless, collected in books, traditions, academies, and schools, it might find a permanent seat, and a fructifying union of strength." But for the few recorded chronicles that have been preserved to us, what could we have known of the pomp and splendor of the classic ages ? Author-Craft. 23 " Let us imagine a student anxious to be instructed in all that has been done and thought in preceding times. Whither shall he go ? Where, but to the written or printed leaf, can he resort for available or satisfactory knowledge ? If he betake himself to na ture, he finds that all impress written thereon by man, has been eaten out by the corroding tooth of time. He gropes laboriously amid physical relics, but a vague and partial glimpse is his only reward. " He visits his library, and one by one, arise before him, the immortal sons of genius. " He approaches the doors of science, but they are closed. He presents the talisman of a book, and the heralds of discovery come forth to greet him. He en ters, and the field of human achievement is spread before him. Galileo holds to his eye the magical me chanism that draws within its range the rings of Saturn and the satellites of Jupiter. He looks again and Tor- ricelli makes the heavy mercury the prophet of the storm. Again, and the needle, quivering to an influ ence too subtle to be traced, points unerringly amidst the solitudes of the sea. Harvey tells him why the crimson mounts into the cheek, Jenner pianoplies him against his most direful foe, Daguerre commands the pencil of the sun, and Laurentius shows him how to render his thoughts eternal. He turns again, and Locke teaches him the secrets of his own mind, Bacon in structs him in the true mode of study, Linnaeus spreads before him the beauties of leaf and flower, Lyell clips off some crust from the ancient rock and reads the earth s autobiography, while Newton and La Place Mosaics. bear him safely along the starry pavement of the milky way." * Deny these treasured resources to the poet, the his torian and the student, and the long-buried ages are voiceless and uninstructive. No poet s music comes down to him, through the long reaches of the past, to dissolve him with its sweet ness, or thrill him with its inspiration. He is lost to these oracles of beauty these High Priests of the imagination enchanters divining the splendors of the ideal kingdom weaving delicious fan cies soft and airy as summer clouds and sweet summer buds and sowing " the earth with orient pearl." He opens the poetic page, and innumerable voices of melody crowd upon his ear. There float down to him, in delicious numbers, all the loftiest conceptions of genius, from " The grand old masters, The bards sublime ; Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of time." Not only as conservators of the past, are books to be prized; they are also an ever-enduring source of enjoy ment, since they beguile us of our sorrows and our dis turbing cares. We offer one among the numerous other recorded testimonies of their excellent power. Joob that prince of punsters, knew something of this experi ence, as his facetious letter, written while on a sick bed, fully proves : He writes, " Experience enables me * Marsh. Author-Craft. 25 to depose to the comfort and blessing that literature can prove in seasons of sickness and sorrow how powerfully intellectual pursuits can help in keeping the head from crazing, and the heart from breaking nay, not to be too grave, how generous mental food can even atone for a meagre diet rich fare on the paper for short commons on the cloth." " It was once my misfortune," he continues, " with a tolerable appetite, to be condemned to Lenten fare, like Sancho Panza, by my physician to a diet, in fact, lower than any prescribed by the Poor-law Commissioners ; all animal food from a bullock to a rabbit, being strictly interdicted; as well as all fluids stronger than that which lays dust ; but the feast of reason and the flow of soul were still mine. Denied beef, I had Bulwer and Cowper forbidden mutton, there was Lamb and and in lieu of pork, the great Bacon or Hogg. Many a trouble has been soothed by the still small voice of the philosopher many a dragon-like care charmed to sleep by the sweet song of the poet ; for all which I cry incessantly, hot aloud, but in my heart thanks and honor to the glorious masters of the pen." Some, however, are as prodigal of books as others are provident and appreciative. Colmbge divided readers in to four classes, the first he compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand it runs in and out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class, he said, resembled a sponge which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class he likened to a jelly-bag which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains onlv the re- 26 Mosaics. fuse and the dregs. The fourth class he compared to the slaves in the diamond mines of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserve only the pure gems. Our great representative writers are not all to be studied in the library some should be our companions in the woods and fields, some on the sea-shore, and others in the social circle. For instance, to enjoy the majestic epic of Milton, read him in some seques tered nook of an old cathedral, whose " dim religious light " will harmonize with the lofty and sublime mus ings of the great Christian poet. Seek the recesses of some shady wood far from city strife and din, to pore over the romantic and chivalric verse of Spenser and Chaucer. Take Wordsworth with you to the margin of some rippling stream or lake, with blue mountains in the horizon, and carolling birds over head the scenes of his own inspiration. Thus pursuing the ingenious analytic arrangement of a recent critic, we are coun selled to make Pope our companion in a bijou of an apartment fitted up with the most fastidious elegance ; with busts, vases, pictures and books for its decorative appointments. Scott should be read in an apartment hung with relics of the feudal ages, and lighted by windows painted with heraldic ornaments, seated in an elabo rately-carved, high-backed, old chair. To sympathize with the spirit of Byron, seat your self on a rock by the sea-shore when the sky looks wild and stormy, with but few distant white sails to tell of the existence of man. Author-Craft. Seat yourself on a stile in the country, and read Goldsmith, when the corn-field is full of reapers : some at work, and others lying in the shade ; while over the trees peeps the spire of the picturesque old village church ; and the red brick house of the squire looks down from the hill. All around then breathes of English rural life, and of Goldsmith. Study the philosophic Fielding in the travellers room of a country inn, which is a little world in itself. Guests are arriving others are departing bells are ringing the landlady is calling ; but let not this dis turb you; for probably the very same thing is occur ring on the page before you. Moore must give forth his fascinations in a bower of vine-leaves intermixed with roses. In the ruins of some old abbey draw inspiration from the poetic pages of Keats and Shelley. And where shall be our study for the master-mind, Shakspeare ? The lonely sea-shore the green shades of the forest the busy resorts of the town all those spots which we have singly claimed for others may be successively claimed for Shakspeare; for all have inspired his universal genius. There are many authors who should never be read out of a library : it is their proper and perfect illus tration. The following horticultural classification of our poets may be new to some readers. Chaucer has been com pared to the quince, used generally to give flavor to other fruits : Spenser to a walnut, an excellent kernel when you have cracked the shell of the allegory : Darwin 28 Mosaics. to a melon, an imposing fruit to the eye, but insipid to the taste : Young and Akenside to olives, relished by the discerning few : Scott to an orange, agreeable to all palates : Goldsmith to a gooseberry, a fruit univer sally liked, and common even in " Deserted Villages :" Byron to the grape, picturesque, but tending to intoxi cation : Milton to an apple of his own Paradise : and Shakspeare to a pine-apple, rough with the rust of antiquity, but most exquisite at the core. Mind lives by mind ; thoughts germinate their kind. We see this imaged in the reproductions of nature. It has been suggested that even Shakspeare borrowed from the ancients ; that he is indebted for some of his great thoughts to Holingshed and the old chroniclers. Yet Walter Savage Landor is reported to have said that a rib of Shakspeare would have sufficed to produce a Milton, and a rib of Milton all the poets that have succeeded him. " Chalmers, within the last two or three years of his life," writes his biographer, " com pleted an entire perusal of Gibbon, Shakspeare, and Milton. The single play of Shakspeare s in which he took most pleasure was Midsummer Night s Dream, among the fairy pictures of which he delighted to revel. I look, he would say, after laying down the book, I look on Shakspeare as an intellectual miracle. " And Schlegel, notwithstanding he was of the land of Goethe, confessed that Shakspeare was in strength of intellect a demi-god ; in profundity of view, a pro phet; in all-seeing wisdom, a protecting spirit." A writer in the Quarterly Review, remarks : " There is perhaps not a thought, or feeling, or situation really Author-Craft. 29 common and generic to human life on which lie has not exercised his prerogative : and wherever he has once been, woe to the man that comes after him. He has overgrown the whole system and face of things like a universal ivy, which has left no wall uncovered, no pin nacle unclimbed, no chink unpenetrated. Since he lived, the concrete world has worn a richer surface. He found it great and beautiful, with stripes here and there of the rough old coat seen through the leafy labors of his predecessors : he left it clothed through out with the wealth and autumnal luxuriance of his own unparalled language." We are all ready to pay homage to his transcendent greatness, in the expressive lines of glrs. amtt fjroforang : " Shakspeare on whose forehead climb The crowns of the world! oh, eyes sublime, With tears and laughter for all time !" Circumstances have much to do with the true relish and understanding of an author ; as much influence, indeed, as that afforded by the accompaniment of pic torial embellishment, which addresses the eye as directly as the text impresses the mind. It is justice to an author or artist to study his pro ductions in connection with the attributes and circum stances of the age in which he lived. " Milton arose," says an elegant critical writer, " and struck the harp, while the sun of the Reformation was high up in its zenith ; and from this fact, as well as from the splendor of his productions, he has been considered the repre- 30 Mosaics. sentative of the revival of letters and the poet-laureate of Protestantism. Cowper, Burns, and Scott belong to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to different strata of society : one was the type of refinement and piety ; the second, the bard of the people, and the ana lyst of rural joys ; and the third, the wizard spirit of battle and feudal times." By viewing them, then, in connection with the age to which they belonged, and which they illumed, we shall have a clue to many beau ties which otherwise might remain wholly obscured. Besides, the region of thought will become more widely expanded, and that which before would appear but as merely episodical, becomes, with these requisite accessories, an integral part of the great drama. " God sends some teachers unto every age, To every clime and every race of men, With revelation fitted to their growth And shape of mind.* But Milton was not the only poet that drew inspira tion from that wonderful book the Bible. " Prince and peasant of every land have been de lighted students of its sacred pages. The obligations of the world to the Bible are beyond all enumeration : philosophy has derived its highest truths, and legisla tion has founded its judicial code alike from its divine ethics ; for its lessons are not only the essence of pure religion, but the truest morals and the guiding axioms of political economy. It is the theme of universal appeal no work being so frequently quoted or re- * Lowell. Author-Craft. 31 ferred to. It sustained Origen s scholarship, and Chrysostom s golden rhetoric. It gave life to the revival of letters, and Dante and Petrarch revelled in its imagery. It roused the intrepidity of the lion-hearted Luther, shed supernal grandeur over Milton s mighty mind, and soothed the sadness of Cowper s. It is the magna charta of the world s liber ties, and formed the glorious panoply of the heroes of civil and religious rights, and has in great part revolu tionized the face of the world." " Out from the heart of nature rolled, The burdens of the Bible old ; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano s tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below The canticles of love and woe. ***** The word unto the prophet spoken, Was writ on tables yet unbroken."* Shakspeare was the great original author of Eng land; Homer, or the Homeric ballads, by common consent, fertilized classic antiquity. Virgil, Sophocles, Horace, Eschylus, Euripides, were his sons ; and Dante, Petrarch, and Tasso, may be regarded in the same relation to Italy, that Rabelais bears to France Moliere, Montaine, and others being his legitimate descendants. It has been suggested that the greatest mental power has been developed in instances where an author has devoted his study to some one great genius. Such illustrations are on record ; for example, 32 Mosaics. Clarendon made Livy his daily study; Montesquieu chose Tacitus ; Malherbe s choice was Horace, and Sir William Jones, Cicero. According to "jpngnoi : " The history of Thucydides, who, when a youth, had shed tears of transport and joy on hearing Hero dotus repeat his history of the Persian wars before the Athenians, was so much admired by Demosthenes, that, in order to perfect himself as an orator, he transcribed it eight times, and could almost repeat it by heart. The reverence of Alexander the Great for Homer is known to all scholars. Xenophon was the favorite author of Scipio Africanus, who continually perused his works, which materially contributed to make him a great general : the same admirable moralist and histo rian constituted the delight of Lucullus. Though Aristotle, Plato, and Theophrastus were greatly ad mired and studied by Cicero, yet Demosthenes was in his judgment the greatest of all orators, in every kind of style; and he gloried in imitating him. The younger Brutus so highly esteemed the history of Polybius, that he not only read it even when engaged in the most important aifairs, but on the very day before the battle of Philippi he was occupied in abridging his history. So enthusiastically was Virgil attached to Homer, that he was surnamed the Homeric." Bossuet being asked what work he would wish to have written, replied, "The Provincial Letters" of Pascal.* Bourdaloue read every year the epistles of St. Paul, the works of Chrysostom, and of Cicero, from * So. Lit. Mess. Author-Craft. 33 which he drew his masculine and solid eloquence. In a later age Southey read Spenser through about thirty times. Other instances of this sort might be adduced ; but these may suffice to show that an ardent attach ment to some one great author is not inconsistent with the highest order of mind. " Every father spirit in the intellectual world has his gifted sons ; and it is wonderful with what rapidity the germs of intellect expand in fruitful soils. How often is the creative spark struck forth in a moment, and after the lapse of ages caught and kindled into a living blaze. There is a singleness and unity in the pursuits of genius through all time, which produce a species of consan guinity in the characters of authors. Men of genius, nourishing in distant periods, or in remote and inhospit able countries, seem to be the same persons with another name, whose minds have in the intervening time been constantly improving, and thus the literary character, long since departed, appears only to have transmi grated. In the great march of the human intellect, each still occupies the same place, and is still carrying on, with the same powers, his great work through a line of centuries. Sometimes, indeed, it happens that some useful labor is lost for a season, some one of the greater lights is apparently struck from the system ; but another Kepler arises to point out the discord in the celestial harmony, and some future observer dis covers in the vast field of space, the fragments of the lost planet, and restores the broken chord. In the his tory of genius there is no chronology ; the whole book is open before us ; everything is present, and the ear- Mosaics. liest discovery is connected by a thousand links with the most recent. Many men of genius must arise before a particular man of genius can appear. Aris tophanes, in his comic scenes, ridiculed the Grecian mythology, and Epicurus, following in his footsteps, shook the pillars of Olympus. The skeptic mind of Wickliffe overshadowed the genius of John Huss and Luther, girding himself with their armor, caused the institutions of Europe to tremble to their founda tions." " Few books," it has been observed, " have more than one thought ; others, indeed, may be said to have scarcely that. The more ingenious authors of the former seem to think, if they once get their candle lighted, it will burn on for ever. Yet even a candle gives a sorry, melancholy light, unless it has a brother beside it, to shine on and keep it cheerful. For lights and thoughts are social and sportive ; they delight in playing with, and into each other. One can hardly conceive a duller state of existence than sitting at whist with three dummies : and yet many of our prime philosophers have seldom done anything else." * Hir SEalter Scott, with the modesty of true genius, thus writes in his autobiography : " Through every part of my literary career, I have felt pinched and hampered at my own ignorance." This is the utter ance of true wisdom. Sir Isaac Newton, it will be remembered, made an admission similar in effect. At a time when he had become the admiration of mankind, he confessed he felt like a child picking up pebbles on * Guesses at Truth. Author-Craft. 35 the sea-shore, with the unexplored ocean of knowledge spread out before him. " Every one of my writings," says doeilje, in the same candid spirit, " has been furnished to me by a thousand different persons, a thousand different things : the learned and the ignorant, the wise and the foolish, infancy and old age have come in turn, generally with out having the least suspicion of it, to bring me the offering of their thoughts, their faculties, their expe rience. Often have they sowed the harvest I have reaped. My works are an aggregation of human beings, taken from the whole of Nature." Great results are the sure rewards of the toil of study and persevering mental industry. Talents, how ever brilliant, cannot supersede reading and thinking : thinking makes what we read our own. " It is remarkable that many of the best books of all sorts," observes gitonhr (Btett, "have been written by persons who, at the time of writing them, had no intention of becoming authors." He further seeks to vindicate the position by reference to the great dramatists who wrote for the stage, while their collected plays make excellent books. " What," he continues, " are our pretended histories, but fables, apologies, jests, or satires?" Even Voltaire, who attempted to write a book in imitation of " the bible of Greece," in his " Henriade," failed. In short, a true book is an inspiration, and that which is made " to order," is necessarily a sort of counterfeit ; bearing the same relation to a real book which the juggling of the Egyptian musicians did to the miracles of Moses. 36 Mosaics. Aristotle distinguished the learned and the unlearned O as the living and the dead the former as illumed by a bright firmament spangled over with shining orbs of light : the other as immured in the murky recesses of a subterranean cavern, whose unmitigated gloom is ren dered impervious to the entrance of a single enlivening ray. The memorable period known as the " dark ages " of England, and that succeeding it, afford a striking illus tration of this fact ; an age more prolific in instances of transcendent genius than any which the world has ever beheld. The giant spirits of classic times seemed again to have emerged on eagle-wing from the dark ignor ance which had so long enshrouded the land. Jisbop gcrkcleg nobly and justly asserted the supremacy of literature, declaring that " A man who devotes his time to the pursuit of truth, is a better friend to mankind than the greatest statesman or hero, whose labors and exploits are confined to a small por tion of the world ; while a ray of imagination or of wis dom, may enlighten the universe, and glow into remotest centuries." Much of its unity of purpose has been lost with the independence of authorship. How forcibly are some modern writers censured by the modest obscurity with which the authorship of many of the earlier scribes sought to enrich their lite rature and language. Among these worthies were Selden, Sackville, Sydney and Surrey, with many others, whose names have vanished like their own slow- moving shadows upon the illuminated curtains, but who yet found, amidst all their poverty, privations and Author-Craft. 37 sorrows, their resource and pleasure in their patient literary pursuits. The fact that, almost without exception, those who have espoused the literary profession, whether poor or wealthy, have done so irrespective alike of either con dition, seems to attest their governing impulse to have been that of an ardent love for the ennobling pursuit itself. The smiles as well as the frowns of fortune have ever been equally abortive in their influence over a mind once devoted to the pleasures of literature and science : abundant evidence of this being afforded by the history of many whose works have been bequeathed to us as the legacy of all time. Many of our great men are parvenus. Our poets, our sculptors, our painters, our authors, are mostly men who have risen from the ranks. From Shaks- peare to Burns they sprung from the people. They are the sons of barkers, woolcombers, ploughmen, masons, sweeps, pitmen, laborers, shopkeepers, or mer chants. Were their great thoughts the less valued on that account? Was their title to true fame less deserved ? Dmgm has finely said of the great thinkers : " These men have neither ancestors nor posterity ; they alone compose the whole race." The temper of the present age permits it not to enjoy all those refined and entrancing pleasures which pure literature is capable of affording. The popular pulse throbs with each varying stimulant of the moment. There is little contemplativeness in modern literature : instead of the " Faerie Queene," we consult the matter-of-fact Dictionaries ofMcCulloch; the knight- 38 Mosaics. hood of genius yields to the aristocracy of commerce. The age of intellectual chivalry is over and gone : but its exploits remain forever speaking to those who, with a gentle and reverent spirit, pause to listen and to love. If we turn to books of elegant criticism, we find the like indifference in the popular taste. In an atmos phere so heavy and lowering, we ought not to be astonished that " Fancy s gilded clouds decay, And all her varying rainbows die away." Notable as was that epoch, "The great men of the Elizabethan age said many witty things and many wise ones, but we cannot fail to be struck with the singular contrast between the robust ness of their intellects, and the poor facetice to which they sometimes stooped. With the fools, who enter tained the guests of kings and nobles, and who bore some resemblance to the laughter-maker of the ancients, we are familiar through the plays of Shakspeare. Their sallies were characterized as much by imperti nence as by wit. Indeed, the impertinence was often itself the joke. To put one person out of countenance afforded mirth to the rest. The womanly vanity and queenly pride of Elizabeth shrunk from these rude rebukes. She would not allow her fool, Pace, because of his caustic vein, to enter her presence ; but once being persuaded to have him in, c Come on, Pace, said she, now we shall hear of our faults. I do not, he replied, use to talk of that which all the town talks on. She never probably ventured to repeat the expe- Author-Craft. riment, and in this case no one can do otherwise than sympathize with the sensitiveness of Elizabeth, and wonder at the taste of our ancestors, who could suffer their conversation to be broken in upon by the sorry jests and coarse personalities of a licensed buffoon. From Shakspeare we learn equally how the paltriest puns in that day were received for wit ; and Lord Ba con s Apothegms, the best repository of the smart say ings of the ancients which was ever made, bears testimony no less to the fact that an indifferent play on words was held in estimation by sages like himself." * The biographies of eminent men furnish occasional glimpses of their domestic habits arid characteristic pur suits ; such details acquire peculiar interest when they pertain to authorship. We delight to treasure up every incident that contributes to make up the psycho logical sketch. It is the penetralia of their homes, their private habits of life, and the minutise of their domestic history that we most desire to know, and this is usually the unwritten history which is left to our conjecture. Even their very foibles and follies are invested with an importance and interest unknown to the ordinary walks of life. It is by the little trivial incidents of life that we are enabled to decipher the character of a man, more than by his greatest actions. It is thus collating the details of his daily life, his familiar deportment and opinions, his private conver sation and temper, that we can sketch his real por traiture. These elements, although often seemingly very unimportant, are yet the most characteristic and * Quaiterly Review. 40 Mosaics. genuine things in a man s memoir. It is the small talk and gossip of " Boswell s Johnson," that constitutes it such a universal favorite. Boswell has so indus triously collected the foolish, as well as the wise obser vations of the great lexicographer, portrayed his asperities as well as his amenities, his eccentricities as well as excellences, so faithfully, that we are at no loss to estimate his character. Let who will question the accuracy of taste discovered in such minute disclosures, it cannot be denied that they are the very details essential to a true portrait. A cabinet series of such portraits of eminent men, it would be no easy task to produce ; all that has been now attempted is to group together a few fugitive facts, which, although thrown together in a desultory manner, can hardly be deemed devoid of interest. Who would not willingly make a pilgrimage to catch a glimpse of an author in his lite rary laboratory his workshop? For example, of Richardson, in his back-shop, writing " Pamela ;" of Cowper and his tame hares ; of Byron and Newstead Abbey ; of Burns, in his humble cottage home ; of Yoltaire, in his retreat of Ferney by the shores of Lake Leman ; of Sir Walter Scott, in his study at Abbotsford: of Dr. Johnson, in his retreat in Bolt Court ; of Shakspeare, and the woods of Charlecote ; of Pope, and his house at Twickenham ; of Swift, and his living at Laracor. We are never tired of reading of such things, identified as they are with genius, and consecrated by their association with the names of great men. We take an interest in even smaller things. Every- Author-Craft. 41 body remembers Goldsmith s bloom-colored coat ; George Fox s "leathern hull;" Milton s garb of coarse grey; Magliabecchi s great brown vest down to his knees, his broad-brimmed hat and patched black mantle, and his cravat full of snuff-droppings ; Pope s velvet cap, tye-wig, and sword ; and Buffon, with his hair in curl papers while sitting at his desk ; Scott s limp ; Byron s club foot ; Pope s little crooked figure, like a note of interrogation ; Johnson s rotundity and rheum ; Charles Lamb s spindle-shanks in gaiters ; and all manner of personal peculiarities of distinguished men. Voltaire was fond of magnificent attire, and usually dressed in an absurd manner. Diderot once travelled from St. Petersburg to Paris in his morning-gown and nightcap ; and in this guise promenaded the streets and public places of the towns on his route. He was often taken for a madman. While composing his works, he used to walk about at a rapid pace, making huge strides, and sometimes throwing his wig in the air when he struck out a happy idea. One day, a friend found him in tears. " Good heavens !" he ex claimed, "what is the matter?" "I am weeping," answered Diderot, " at a story that I have just com posed !" Wordsworth was deemed a madman by some of the villagers, by others a criminal in the disguise of an idler. They affirmed that he had been often seen to wander about at night and " look rather strangely at the moon," and that sometimes " he would roam over the hills like a partridge." 42 Mosaics. Gray was a polite monk, the most learned man of his day. His elegy is the most melodious poem in the language. He was a man of extreme taciturnity. It is said he sometimes was known to pass a whole day in company without uttering a word.* Curious instances of mental abstraction are on record. The anecdotes of Archimedes will be remembered, who rushed through the streets of Syracuse al fresco, crying, Eureka ! and, at the taking of the city, was killed by a soldier, while tracing geometrical lines on sand. Socrates, when filled with some idea, would stand for hours fixed like a statue. It is recorded of him that he stood amidst the soldiers in the camp at Potidea, in rooted abstraction, listening to his " pro phetic or supernatural voice." Democritus shut him self up for days together in a little apartment in his garden. Dante was subject to fits of abstraction, in which he often quite forgot himself. One day, he found an interesting book, which he had long sought * The original manuscript of Gray s Elegy was lately sold at auction in Lon don. There was really " a scene " in the auction-room. Imagine a stranger entering in the midst of a sale of some rusty-looking old books. The auction eer produces 1/wo half slieets of paper, written over, torn, and mutilated. He calls it " a most interesting article," and apologizes for.its condition. Pickering bids ten pounds ! Rod, Foss, Thorp, Bohn, Holloway, and some few amateurs, quietly remark, twelve, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, and so on, till there is a pause at sixty-three pounds ! The hammer strikes. " Hold !" says Mr. Foss. " It is mine," says the amateur. " No, I bid sixty-five in time." "Then I bid seventy." " Seventy-five," says Mr. Foss ; and fives are repeated again, until the two bits of paper are knocked down, amid a general cheer, to Payne & Foss, for one hundred pounds sterling ! On these bits of paper are written the first drafts of the " Elegy in a Country Churchyard," by Thomas Gray, includ ing five verses which were omitted in publication, and with the poet s interlinear corrections and alterations. Author-Craft. 43 for, in a druggist s shop in Sienna, and sat reading there till night came on. Camoens composed his verses with the roar of battle in his ears, for the Portuguese poet was a soldier, and a brave one. He composed others of his most beauti ful verses at the time when his Indian slave was beg ging a subsistence for him in the streets. Tasso wrote his finest pieces in the lucid intervals of madness. Saint Bernard composed his meditations amidst the woods ; he delighted in nothing so much as the solitude of the dense forest, finding there, he said, something more profound and suggestive than anything he could find in books. The storm would sometimes fall upon him there, without for a moment interrupting his meditations. Racine composed his verses while walking about, reciting them in a loud voice. One day, when thus working at his play of" Mithridates " in the gardens of the Tuileries, a crowd of workmen gathered around- him, attracted by his gestures ; they took him to be a mad man about to throw himself into the water. Bacon was possessed with a strange fancy for a small study ; he supposed a contracted room helped him to condense his thoughts. He knelt down, before compos ing his great work, and prayed for light from heaven. Ipossud; before writing one of his celebrated Funeral Orations, would read Homer in the original Greek, to give his thoughts the required degree of elevation. " Thus," said he, " I light my lamp with the rays of the sun." guikeg has minutely preserved for us the manner in 44: Mosaics. which Hobbes composed his " Leviathan." It is very curious for literary students. " He walked much and contemplated ; and he had in the head of his cane a pen and inkhorn, and carried always a note-book in his pocket ; and as soon as a thought darted, he presently entered it into his book, or otherwise he might have lost it. He had drawn the design of the book into chapters, etc., and he knew whereabouts it would come in. Thus that book was made." When Pascal became warm in his celebrated contro versy, he applied himself with incredible labor to the composition of his "Provincial Letters." He was fre quently occupied twenty days on a single letter. He recommenced some above seven or eight times, and by this means obtained that perfection which has made his work, as Voltaire says, one of the best books ever pub lished in France. Calvin studied in his bed. Every morning at five or six o clock, he had books, manuscripts, and papers car ried to him there, and he worked on for hours together. If he had occasion to go out, on his return he undressed and went to bed again to continue his studies. In his later years, he dictated his writings to secretaries. He rarely corrected anything. The sentences issued com plete from his mouth. If he felt his facility of compo sition leaving him, he forthwith quitted his bed, gave up writing and composing, and went about his out door duties for days, weeks, and months together. But as soon as he felt the inspiration fall upon him again, he went back to his bed, and his secretary set to work forthwith. Author-Craft. 45 Rousseau, who was full of enthusiasm, devoted to the subject of his thoughts the long, sleepless intervals of his nights, and meditating in bed, with his eyes closed, he turned over his periods, in a tumult of ideas ; but when he rose and had dressed, all was vanished, and when he sat down to his papers he had nothing to write. Thus genius has its vespers and its vigils, as well as its matins. Magliabecchi, the learned librarian to the Duke of Tuscany, on the contrary, never stirred abroad, but lived amidst books and upon books. They were his bed, board, and companions. He passed eight-and-forty years in their midst, twice in the course of his life ven turing only beyond the walls of Florence ; once to go two leagues off, and the other three and a half leagues by order of the Grand Duke. He was an extremely frugal man, living upon eggs, bread and water in great moderation. Corneille, in his loftiest flights of imagination, was often brought to a stand-still for want of words and rhyme. Thoughts were seething in his brain, which he vainly tried to reduce to order, and he would often run to his Thomas " for a word." Thomas rarely failed him. Sometimes, in his fits of inspiration, he would bandage his eyes, throw himself on the sofa, and dic tate to his wife, who almost worshipped his genius. Thus he would pass whole days, dictating to her his great tragedies ; his wife scarcely venturing to speak, almost afraid to breathe. Afterwards, when a tragedy was finished, he would call in his sister Martha, and submit it to her judgment ; as Moliere used to consult Mosaics. his old housekeeper about the comedies he had newly written. Of writers who were remarkable for their " elabora tion of a line," the following instances might be adduced : Isocrates spent ten, or, as some will have it, fifteen years, in polishing one Panegyric. Dion Cassius employed twelve years in writing his History, and ten years in preparing his Memoirs. Virgil employed seven years to finish his Bucolics ; and, after a labor of eleven years, pronounced his " ^Eneid " imperfect. Jaco bus Sannazarius wrote three books " DeJPartu Virginis," and dedicated twenty years to this labor. Diodorus Siculus was thirty years in composing his History. The manuscripts of Ariosto are full of erasures. This may be seen in the autograph manuscript preserved at Florence ; the celebrated stanza in which he described a tempest, is written in sixteen different ways. Petrarch re-made one of his verses forty-six times. The manuscripts of Tasso are illegible in consequence of all their corrections. A familiar letter of Pliny opens the domestic interior of a scholar seventeen hundred years ago. He was stirring with the dawn, and thinking gloom favorable to meditation, he had his chamber darkened. Such opposite tempers as Malebranche, Hobbes, Corneille, and Sidney, seem to have shared this partiality. The morning was Pliny s season of composition. Having arranged his subject, he called his secretary, who wrote from his dictation. Supper concluded the day with a book, music, or an interlude. We have a graceful example in a poet who borrowed Author-Craft. 47 Pliny s language. Petrarch lived in the rose-garden. His was the day of the true scholar, who found in Vau- cluse a hermitage of fancy. Often he spent the hours from early morning in unbroken meditation, going forth to his work of taste until the evening. At other times his humor was rural, and he wandered among the leafy woods, while his shadow lengthened in the moon light. Occasionally he gave himself up to waking visions by the waterside, to the tranquil idleness of fishing, or to the culture of his orchard. A dog was his watchful companion. It lay at his bedroom door, rousing him by a sharp rap of the paw when he over slept himself, and the day promised a cheerful excur sion. The moment the poet appeared, his dog led the way to the familiar haunts. St. Pierre copied his " Paul and "Virginia " nine times in order to render it more perfect. Balzac, the first writer in French prose who gave majesty and harmony to a period, it is said did not grudge to bestow a week on a page, and was never satisfied with his first thoughts. It cost Lord Lyttleton twenty years to write the " Life and History of Henry II. ;" the historian Gib bon was twelve years in completing his " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ;" and Adam Smith occupied ten years in producing his " Wealth of Nations. Hume wrote his " History of England " on a sofa, but he went quietly on correcting every edition till his death. Every edition varies from the preceding. Robertson used to write out his sentences on small slips of paper ; and, after rounding them, and polishing 48 Mosaics. them to his satisfaction, he entered them in a book, which in its turn, underwent considerable revision. Rogers, the poet of " Memory," thus writes : " During my whole life I have borne in mind the speech of a woman to Philip of Macedon : I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. After writing anything in the excitement of the moment, and being greatly pleased with it, I have always put it by for a day or two, and then carefully considering it in every possible light, I have altered it to the best of my judg ment ; thus appealing from myself drunk to myself sober. I was engaged on The Pleasures of Memory for nine years ; on Human Life for nearly the same space of time ; and Italy was not completed in less than sixteen years." The remark was once made to Moore, the poet, that it was supposed his verses slipped off his tongue as if by magic, and a passage of great ease was quoted. " Why, sir," replied Moore, " that line cost me hours, days, and weeks of attrition, before it would come. Pope and Goldsmith were among the hard workers with their brains. Goldsmith considered four lines a day good work. He was seven years in " beating out the pure gold " of his "Deserted Village." In the house he usually wore his shirt-collar open, in the manner re presented in the portrait by Sir Joshua. Occasionally he read much at night when in bed ; at other times, when not disposed to read, and yet unable to sleep, which was not an unusual occurrence, the candle was kept burn ing, his mode of extinguishing which, when out of immediate ro#ch, was characteristic of his fits of indo- Author-Craft. 49 lence or carelessness : he flung his slipper at it, which, in the morning was, in consequence, usually found near the overturned candlestick, daubed with grease. Pope was so fastidious that he published nothing until it had been a year or two before him ; and even then, the printer s proofs were crowded with corrections. On one occasion, his publisher (Dodsley) thought it better to have the whole matter recomposed, rather than to make the required alterations. Sir E. Bulwer Lytton is of no less scrupulous taste; he has been known to require half a dozen revises of his proofs. It has been said, that every hour spent in studying is working for higher wages. This is abundantly illus trated in the above instances, and many more might be added. Baron Humboldt, now in his ninetieth year, is said to devote himself from eleven, A.M., to three o clock, P.M., to his laborious researches. The lamented Hugh Miller, once the humble stone-mason, attained to the highest renown as a geologist, through his unwearied devotion to science. Dr. Mason Good composed his long and elaborate poetical translation of Lucretius in the streets of London, while passing from one patient to another. Dr. Burney, the distinguished musician, learned the Italian and French languages on horseback, while riding from place to place to give his professional instructions. The secret of their successes is, that they regarded " spare moments as the gold-dust of time," and made p.n economic use of them. Some authors, wishing to evade the labor of writing, have sought the aid of the amanuensis. Goldsmith made the attempt, but could 50 Mosaics. not succeed ; he paced up and down his room, unable to dictate a single line. He confessed he could only work head and hand together. Others, however, including James and Dumas, have been able to conduct more than one book at a time by such means. Let us now refer to a few fluent and ready writers. " Johnson s manner of composing," says ^is^op |)er% "has not been rightly understood. He was so extremely short-sighted from the defect in his eyes, that writing was inconvenient to him ; for whenever he wrote, he was obliged to hold the paper close to his face. He therefore never composed what we call a foul draft on paper of anything he published, but used to revolve the subject in his mind, and turn and form every period, till he had brought the whole to the highest correctness and the most perfect arrangement. Then, his uncommonly retentive memory enabled him to deliver a whole essay, properly finished, whenever it was called for. Sir John Hawkins informs us, that his essays hardly ever underwent a revision before they went to the press ; and adds : The original manuscripts of the " Rambler " have passed through my hands, and by the perusal of them I am warranted to say, as was said of Shakspeare, by the players of his time, that he never blotted a line? " Cljamtrm, in his life of Burns, says: "It is a remark able fact, that the mass of the poetry which has given this extraordinary man his principal fame, burst from him in a comparatively small space of time, not ex ceeding fifteen months. It began to flow of a sud den, and it ran in one impetuous brilliant stream, till Author-Craft. 51 it seemed to have become, comparatively speaking, ex hausted." Lamartine, in his days of prosperity, composed in a studio, with tropical plants, birds, and every luxury to cheer the senses, around him. Richard Savage noted down a whole tragedy on scraps of paper at the coun ters of shops, into which he entered and asked for pen and ink, as if to make a memorandum. Berkeley composed his " Minute Philosophy " under the shade of a rock on Newport beach. Jonathan Edwards meditated his profound work on " The Will," as he walked in the shade of an elm, still standing at Northampton. Schil ler evolved his finest play in a summer-house ; Dr. Johnson delved at his dictionary in a poor lodging in London, with a cat purring near, and orange-peel and tea at hand ; Moliere tested the comic power of his plays by reading them to an old servant. Lopez de Yega was the most voluminous of writers. But it is not the quantity so much as the quality of literary matter that insures immortality ; for long after the millions of Lopez de Yega s lines are buried in oblivion, the few simple verses of Gray s " Elegy" will live to delight mankind. ^oetlje possessed surprising facility in poetic compo sition, resembling improvisation, or inspiration, rather than composition. " I had come," he informs us, " to regard the poetic talent dwelling within me entirely as nature ; the rather that I was directed to look upon external nature as its proper subject. The exercise of this poetic gift might be stimulated and determined by occasion, but it flowed forth most joyfully, most 52 Mosaics. richly, when it came involuntarily, or even against my will. I was so accustomed to say over a song to myself, without being able to collect it again, that I sometimes rushed to the desk, and, without taking time to adjust a sheet that was lying crosswise, wrote the poem diagonally from beginning to end, without stirring from the spot. For the same reason I pre ferred to use a pencil, which gives the characters more willingly: for it had sometimes happened that the scratching and spattering of the pen would wake me from my somnambulistic poetizing, distract my atten tion, and stifle some small product in the birth. For such poetry I had a special reverence. To barter it for money seemed to me detestable." Goethe, with all his love of art and passion for beauty, wrote in an undecorated room, on a plain table, with few books, and no pictures or scenery in view. Some distinguished authors have never written so well as when they were full dressed for company. But profound thought and poetical inspiration have most generally visited men, when, from their circumstances or habits, the rent garment and shabby appearance have made them quite unfit for fashionable society. Bloomfield, the poet, relates of himself that nearly one-half of his poem, " The Farmer s Boy," was com posed, without writing a word of it, while he was at work, with other shoemakers, in a garret. The " Prometheus " and the " Cenci " were both written in Italy. "The Prometheus," says J%Ikg, " was written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and thickets of Author-Craft. 53 odoriferous blossoming trees, which are extended in ever-winding labyrinths upon its immense platforms, and dizzy arches suspended in the air. The bright blue sky of Rome, and the effect of the vigorous awakening of spring in that divinest climate, and the new life with which it drenches the spirits even to intoxication, were the inspiration of this drama." Shelley, while an Oxford student, read at all times at table, in bed, and while walking. He read not only in the streets of Oxford, but in the most crowded tho roughfares of London. Out of the twenty-four hours he frequently read sixteen. Among our notices of literary life, we may refer to the interesting glimpses of author-craft furnished us in the instance of sou%g, from his own pen : " My actions," he writes, "are as regular as St. Dunstan s quarter-boys. Three pages of history after breakfast (equivalent to five in small quarto printing) ; then to transcribe and copy for the press, or to make my selec tions or biographies, or what else suits my humor, till dinner-time ; from dinner till tea I read, write letters, see the newspapers, and very often indulge in a siesta. After tea I go to poetry, and correct, re-write and copy till I am tired, and then turn to anything else till sup per." An English reviewer observes that the result of his intense and regular application is marvellous. We question whether any writer of any country ever produced so much. The fountain never ceased to flow until, fairly exhausted, it could yield no more. The man had but one brain and but one pair of hands, yet he performed at one time the labor of an academy. Mosaics. In a letter to a friend, in 1806, he writes: "Last night I began the preface to the Specimens of English Poets. Huzza! And now, Grosvenor, let me tell you what I have to do. I am writing 1. The His tory of Portugal. 2. < The Chronicle of the Cid. 3. The Curse of Kehama. 4. Espriella s Letters. Look you, all these I am writing. The second and third must get into the press and out of it before this time twelvemonth, or else I shall be like the civil list. By way of interlude comes in the preface. Don t swear, and bid me do one thing at a time, no, nor two either; and it is only by doing many things that I contrive to do so much ; for I cannot work long at any thing without hurting myself, and I do everything by heats ; then by the time I am tired of one, my inclina tion for another is at hand." One stands appalled in the presence of Southey s poetic feats. " Is it not a pity," he writes to one of his poetic friends, " that I should not execute my intention of writing more verses than Lopez de Vega, more tragedies than Dryden, and more epics than Blackmore ? The more I write, the more I have to write. I have a Helicon kind of dropsy upon me, and crescit indulgens sibi." In another letter, written before he was twenty, he remarks that he has accomplished a most arduous task : " I have transcribed all my verses that appear worth the trouble. Of these I took one list another of my pile of stuff and nonsense and a third of what I have burnt and lost ; upon an average ten thousand verses are burnt and lost, the same number preserved, and fifteen thousand worthless. Consider that all my Author-Craft. 55 letters are excluded, and you may judge what waste of paper I have occasioned." Writing a thousand lines, or destroying a thousand, the labor was equally effort less. " Yesterday," he tells another, " I drew my pen across six hundred lines, and am now writing to you instead of supplying their place." Pope never could compose well without first declaim ing for some time at the top of his voice, and thus rous ing his nervous system to its fullest activity. "The things," says |Jop, "that I have written fastest, have always pleased the most. I wrote the 4 Essay on Criticism fast, for I had digested all the mat ter in prose before I began upon it in verse. The Rape of the Lock was written rapidly, all the machi nery was added afterwards ; and the making that, and what was published before, hit so well together, is, I think, one of the greatest proofs of judgment of any thing I ever did. I wrote most of the Iliad fast, a great deal of it on journeys, from a little pocket Homer, and often forty or fifty verses on a morning in bed." Colton wrote his aphorisms, " Lacon," upon covers of letters and any scraps of paper that came to hand. Sad that so gifted a philosopher should indite such excellent thoughts for others, and he himself prove so erratic. Although a beneficed clergyman, he became a notorious gambler, and ultimately committed suicide, at Paris, in 1832. Other writers have been remarkable for their eco nomy of paper. Haydn wrote his valuable work, " Dictionary of Dates," on any scraps of newspaper Mosaics. corners, or fragments of old letters that came in his way. He picked up many of his facts while consorting with his boosy beer-drinking companions in porter houses. Sharon Turner, who had not, like Haydn, the excuse of poverty, since he was in receipt of a lite rary pension of 300 per annum, yet used odd scraps of letters and torn paper in writing his " Sacred His tory of the World " to the terrible discomfiture of his printer. Some slow writers have left us tedious books, and others who have composed with surprising facility, have produced some of the most stirring and beautiful works of genius. Some, like Caesar, have experienced the highest mental excitement amidst the busiest acti vities of life, and others again, have found the moods and tenses of authorship most propitious like our great pastoral poets, when worshipping at the shrine of Nature. - Crabbe, Southey, Burns, and Wordsworth are instances of the latter ; the last named of whom, being asked for his library, led his friend to the adja cent fields. SHasInngton ^rbhtg usually devoted his entire days to his literary toils, with but slight intermissions. In his picturesque old Dutch mansion, Sunnyside, his study festooned with the luxuriant ivy, originally from a slip from Melrose, given to him by Scott, and look ing over a beautiful lawn, the silver Hudson gleaming in the distance is the presence-chamber of the gifted author of the "Sketch-Book" a work that "needs only age to render it classic." He was never more astonished, he said, than at the success of the " Sketch-Book." His writing of those Author-Craft. 57 stories was so unlike an inspiration so entirely with out any feeling of confidence which could be prophetic of their popularity. Walking with his brother, one dull foggy Sunday, over Westminster Bridge, he got to telling the old Dutch stories which he had heard at Tarrytown in his youth, when the thought suddenly struck him: "I have it! I ll go home and make memoranda of these for a book !" And, leaving his brother to go to church, he went back to his lodgings and jotted down all the data; and the next day the dullest and darkest of London fogs he sat in his little room and wrote out " Sleepy Hollow" by the light of a candle. Geoffrey Crayon (Irving) and Wilkie, the painter, were fellow-travellers on the continent some years since. In their rambles about some of the old cities of Spain, they were more than once struck with scenes and incidents which reminded them of passages in the " Arabian Nights." The painter urged Mr. Irving to write something that should illustrate those peculiari ties something in the "Haroun al Raschid style," which should have a deal of that Arabian spice which pervades everything in Spain. The author set to work, con amore, and produced those arabesque sketches and tales founded on popular traditions, under the title of the " Alhambra." Washington Irving fixed his study in this ancient palace during many months. "How many legends," he says, "and traditions, true and fabulous ; how many songs and romances, Spanish and Arabian, of love and war, and chivalry, are associated with this romantic pile." The legendary lore of the 58 Mosaics. Rhine suggested to him the idea of attempting the series of romantic sketches of the Hudson and the far- famed Catskills, and his own renowned " Sleepy Hollow." These he has invested with a species of Dutch mytho logy, the witchery and ideal beauty of which has so materially added to their natural charms. This infu sion of the poetic sentiment has also tended much to refine the popular mind of his own country, as well as attract the attention of the tourist to the bold and beautiful scenery of the New World. Since all that relates to the historical labors of the late t. ||L jjimoii, is of general interest, we annex the following particulars : Mr. Prescott, it is well known, though not blind, was affected with a disorder of the nerve of the eye, so that he was wholly incapacitated for reading and writing in the ordinary ways. He was exceedingly systematic in his mode of life, and devoted five hours out of the twenty-four to his historical labors. After breakfast, he listened for an hour to some light read ing, a novel, poem, or other entertaining book. He then walked for an hour. At half-past ten o clock his secretary came to his study, and remained till twelve o clock. Another walk of an hour was then taken, after which he went to his study, and remained another hour and a half with his secretary. After dinner, light reading was again resorted to, and at six o clock the secretary returned and remained until eight. This routine of work and leisure was very rigidly observed throughout the season, during the years devoted to the preparation of his elaborate volumes. Author-Craft. 59 With his materials gathered about him, the his torian commenced his work. The secretary first read the only English history of the king and his reign. Notes and observations were dictated as they were suggested by the book. Having freshened his recol lections by hearing this volume read, Mr. Prescott proceeded to examine the treasures he had collected. Each book was taken from the self in turns by the secretary, who read aloud its title, its table of contents, and a few pages by way of specimen of its style and character. Notes were taken while this examination was going on, which were preserved for future reference. The apparatus used by Mr. Prescott consisted of a frame the size of a common sheet of letter paper, with brass wires inserted to correspond with the number of lines marked. Carbonated paper was used, and instead of a pen the writer employed a stylus with an agate point. The great difficulty in the way of a per son s writing in the ordinary manner, whose vision is impaired, arises from not knowing when the ink is exhausted, and moreover the lines will be run into one another. Both difficulties are obviated by the simple arrangement just described. The pages thus written by Mr. Prescott were copied by the secretary, and read, that such interlineations, alterations, and amend ments might be made, as were needed. The materials for the second chapter, on the early life of Philip, were next taken up, and the same process repeated, until the volume is ready for the printer. About six years were devoted to the first two volumes of " Philip the Second," including the preparatory studies. 60 Mosaics. After twenty years of preparation, pursued in such depressing circumstances as no other modern historian, excepting Augustin Thierry, has been called to con tend with, Mr. Prescott, in 1838, published his "His tory of Ferdinand and Isabella." The work appeared simultaneously in London and Boston, and commanded in Europe an immediate tribute of measured and deli berate praise, not -less valuable, perhaps, and delightful to the author than the very natural panegyrics of his own countrymen It has since been translated into German, Italian, French, and Spanish. CampbtU s prose manuscripts were seldom copied. His poems he frequently wrote out very fairly and legibly, on paper which he ruled for the purpose. When he had completed the manuscript of his smaller poems, he would have a few copies printed on slips to keep by him for alteration and revision. " Gertrude of Wyoming," which, of his longer poems, the poet pre ferred, he wrote in leisure time of a twelvemonth. The " Last Man " was composed in the space of three fore noons, and it was sent to press with very inconsiderable changes from the original copy. While Campbell was at his studies in the university at Glasgow, he ono morning handed a poetic effusion to his brother, with whom he resided, and asked his opinion of it. The reply was : " Your lines are admirable, but they want fire ;" and suiting the action to the word, the merciless critic committed them to the flames. It may be presumed that IJottng wrote carefully, as he recommends others to do so. In his "Epistles," the following passage occurs : Author-Craft. 61 " Write and re-write, blot out, and write again, And for its swiftness ne er applaud your pen ; Leave to the jockey s that Newmarket praise ; Slow runs the Pegasus that wins the bays. Much time for immortality to pay Is just and wise ; for less is thrown away. Time only can mature the lab ring brain ; Time is the father, and the midwife pain : The same good sense that makes a man excel, Still makes him doubt he ne er has written well. Downright impossibilities they seek : What man can be immortal in a week?" Among rapid writers, Scott, like Southey, stands preeminent. We have his own testimony that the second and third volumes of " Waverley " were written in three weeks, and Mr. Lockhart states that twice the time sufficed to produce the whole of" Guy Mannering." He composed a large part of his life of Napoleon at the rate of sixteen printed pages per day. He com posed with such wonderful facility, that his brain resembled a high-pressure engine, the steam of which was perpetually up every time he entered his study, and lifted a pen. In his later years, he dictated, and his amanuensis reports that he paced the apart ment under great emotion, and appeared more like a rapt seer than an ordinary mortal, while compos ing the celebrated dialogue between the Templar and the fair Rebecca. There was no feature more conspicuous in the life of the great enchanter than the economical division of his time, and the entire occupancy of it to the best account. In part second of his memoirs, Mr. |T0tKIrari 62 Mosaics. furnishes this description, by James Skene, of Rubislow, who was very intimate with Scott. " He rose by five o clock, lit his own fire when the season required one, and shaved and dressed with great deliberation ; for he was a very martinet as to all but the mere coxcomberies of the toilet, not abhor ring effeminate dandyism itself so cordially as the slightest approach to personal slovenliness, or even those bed-gown and slipper tricks, as he called them, in which literary men are so apt to indulge. Arrayed in his shooting-jacket, or whatever dress he meant to use till dinner-time, he was seated at his desk by six o clock, all his papers arranged before him in the most accurate order, and his books of reference marshalled around him on the floor, while at least one favorite dog lay watching his eye just beyond the line of cir- cumvallation. Thus, by the time the family assembled for breakfast, between nine and ten, he had done enough, in his own language, to break the neck of the day^s work? After breakfast, a couple of hours more were given to his solitary tasks, and by noon he was, as he used to say, his own man. When the weather was bad, he would labor incessantly all the morning ; but the general rule was to be out and on horseback by one o clock at the latest ; while, if any more distant excursion had been proposed over night, he was ready to start on it by ten ; his occasional rainy days of unin- termitted study forming, as he said, a fund in his favor, out of which he was entitled to draw for accommoda tion, whenever the sun shone with special brightness. tc Scott s memory seemed to be hermetically sealed, Author-Craft. 63 suffering nothing once fairly in to leak out again. This was of great service to him when he took up the busi ness of authorship. This may explain, in part, the cause of his rapid execution of works, often replete with rare and curious information. His whole life had been a business of preparation. In most prodigies of memory, the overgrowth of that faculty seems to be attained at the expense of all the others ; but it was not so with Scott. Not only in this respect, but the facility with which he threw his ideas into language, was also remarkable. One of his first ballads, and a long one, was dashed off at the dinner-table. His Lay was written at the rate of a canto a week. Even illness imposed no impediment to the march of composition ; when he could no longer write he dic tated ; and in this way, amid the agonies of disease, he composed the Bride of Lammermoor, the Legend of Montrose, and a great part of Ivanhoe. As to the time and place of composition, it mattered but little. He possessed entire power of abstraction. "When asked how he found time to accomplish so much mental labor, he replied : I lie simmering over things for an hour or two before I get up and there s the time I am dressing to overhaul my half-sleeping, half-waking projet de chapitre and when I get the paper before me, it commonly runs off pretty easily. " Scott was engaged, at the time of his misfortunes, in writing the Life of Bonaparte, taking up his novel of Woodstock at intervals, by way of relief. These tasks he continued, with steady perseverance, in the midst of all his distresses. Even on the day which 64 Mosaics. brought him assurance of the grand catastrophe, he resumed in the afternoon the task which had engaged him in the morning. There was more triumph over circumstances here, than might be supposed ; for he had lately begun to feel the first touches of the infirmi ties of age age to which ease, not hard work, is natu rally appropriate. His sleep was now less sound than it had been ; his eye-sight was failing ; and, above all, he felt that backwardness of the intellectual power, which is inseparable from years. The will, however, was green as ever, and under the prompting of an honorable spirit, it did its work nobly. Doggedly, doggedly did the energetic old man rouse himself from his melancholy couch, and set to his task at an hour when gaiety had little more than sought his. Firmly did he keep to his desk during long hours, till he could satisfy himself that he had done his utmost. The temptations of society, the more insinuating claims of an overworked system for rest, were alike resolutely rejected. The world must ever hear with wonder, that between the third day after his bankruptcy and the fifteenth day thereafter, he had written a volume of Woodstock, although several of these days had been spent in comparative vacancy, to allow the imagi nation time for brooding. He believed that, for a bet, he could have written this volume in ten days." Byron was also a rapid composer. He wrote his " Bride of Abydos "ma single night, and, it is said, without mending his pen. The pen is preserved in the British Museum. According to Trelawney, he was seldom out of his bed before noon, when he drank a Author-Craft. 65 cup of strong green tea, without sugar or milk. At two he ate a biscuit and drank soda-water. At three, mounted his horse, and sauntered along the road and generally the same road ; if alone, racking his brains for fitting matter, and rhymes for the coming poem. He dined at seven, as frugally as anchorites are said in story-books to have done. At nine he visited the family of Count Gamba, On his return home, he sat reading or composing until two or three o clock in the morning, and then to bed, often feverish, restless, and exhausted to dream, as he said, more than to sleep. Dryden s immortal poem, "Alexander s Feast," was the performance of two days ; and Shakspeare s " Merry Wives of Windsor " was finished in a fort night. Milton, free and forgotten, pursued with ardor the composition of his sublime work. He was then fifty- six years of age, blind, and tormented with the gout. A life of limitation and of poverty, numerous enemies, a bitter connection of departed illusions of the humiliating weight of public disgrace, sadness of soul, and suffering of body all assailed him, tenanted, nevertheless, as he was, by a sublime genius. In his days, rarely interrupted, in the long watches of his nights, he employed himself composing verses on a subject which all the events and all the passions of his life had matured. Separated from earth by the loss of sight, and by the hatred of men, he belonged rather to that mysterious sphere of which he recounted the marvels. " Let my eyes be given to my soul," said he to his muse. He looks within himself, over the vast 66 Mosaics. field of his recollections and his thoughts. The terrors of fanaticism, the enthusiasm of revolution, the gloomy exultation of the destroyers of party, the profound hatreds engendered by civil war, had, from all direc tions, assailed and exercised his genius. The pulpits of the English churches, the halls of Westminister, re sounding with the language of sedition and noisy threats, had raised a war-cry against the power to which he loved to pay homage in his songs ; that lan guage and those threats out of which he found armory for the infernal regions warring against the monarchy of Heaven. Milton used to sit leaning Lack obliquely in an easy- chair, with his leg flung over the elbow of it. He frequently composed lying in bed in the morning, but when he could not sleep, and lay awake whole nights, not one verse could he make. At other times, his unpremeditated lines flowed easy, with a certain impe tus and oestrum, as himself used to believe. Then, whatever the hour, he rung for his daughter to commit them to paper. He would sometimes dictate forty lines in a breath, and then reduce them to half the number. The course of engagements adopted by Milton, after he was blind, is thus described by r. |[o{m60tt : c When he first rose (which was at four in summer and five in winter), he heard a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, and then studied till twelve ; took some exercise for an hour ; then dined ; played on the organ and sung, or heard another sing ; then stu died to six ; entertained his visitors till eight ; then Author-Craft. 67 supped, and, after a pipe of tobacco and a glass of water, went to bed." Next to the Bible, Homer was his first tutor. He knew his writings almost by heart. The beauties of Isaiah, Homer, Plato, and Euripides divided his stu dious hours with the composition of his great Epic. His daughters acquired the Hebrew and Greek languages in order to read them to him. It is singular that the master poets of ancient and modern times should have been alike blind. Ulartm |ttt%r s literary labors were enormous ; during an interval of less than thirty years, he published seven hundred and fifteen volumes; some were pamphlets, but most were large and elaborate treatises. He necessarily employed amanuenses for these works, but if his translation of the Bible had been his only produc tion, it would have been considered, under his peculiar circumstances, a gigantic task, even had he devoted to it a lifetime. Luther, when studying, always had his dog lying at his feet, a dog he had brought from Wartburg, and of which he was very fond. An ivory crucifix stood on the table before him, and the walls of his study were stuck round with caricatures of the Pope. He worked at his desk for days together without going out, but when fatigued, and the ideas began to stagnate in his brain, he would take his flute or his guitar with him into the porch, and there execute some musical fantasy (for he was a skillful musician), when the ideas would flow upon him as fresh as after summer s rain. Music was his invariable solace at such times. Indeed, 68 Mosaics. Luther did not hesitate to say that, after theology, music was the first of arts. " Music," said he, " is the art of the prophets ; it is the only other art which, like theology, can calm the agitation of the soul, and put the devil to flight." Next to music, if not be fore it, Luther loved children and flowers. That great, gnarled man had a heart as tender as a wo man s. " The Messiah of fjanbel that amazing fruit of a few weeks inspiration, was dashed on paper, as its companion and predecessor had been. This greatest musical work in existence, the highest in argument, the most pompous in structure, and the most equally sustained from the first note to the final amen, was appreciated by its maker as his own best creation a bequest to all who love the highest religious art, forever." * Tradition aifirms that Handel wept and trembled, when the subject which he improvised was moving or awful. Handel, being questioned as to his ideas and feelings when composing the " Halleluiah" chorus, replied, in his imperfect English : "I did think I did see all heaven before me, and the great God himself." When he was composing, his excitement would rise to such a pitch, that he would burst into tears. It is said that a friend, calling upon the great musician when in the act of setting these pathetic words : " He was despised and rejected of men," found him absolutely sobbing. "I have heard it related," says Shield, "that when * Edinburgh Review. Author-Craft. 69 Handel s servant used to bring him his chocolate in the morning, he often stood in silent astonishment to see his master s tears mixing with the ink, as he penned his divine notes." The motion of his pen, rapid as it was, could not keep up with the rapidity of his concep tion. His MSS. were written with such impetuosity, that they are difficult to read. The mechanical power of the hand w^as not sufficient for the current of ideas which flowed through that volcanic brain. Thus much for the domestic illustrations of author ship. We have already referred to the pains and plea sures of the pen in a previous volume. Johnson preferred conversation to books ; but when driven to the refuge of reading by being left alone, he then attached himself to that amusement. By his innu merable quotations, one would suppose that he must have read more books than any man in England ; but he declared that supposition was a mistake in his favor. He owned he had hardly read a book through. ClnmljUl used to say, having heard, perhaps, of his con fession, as a boast, that " if Johnson had only read a few books, he could not be the author of his own works." His opinion, however, was that he who reads most has the chance of knowing most ; but he declared that the perpetual task of reading was as bad as the slavery in the mine, or the labor at the oar. Burton, the author of the " Anatomy of Melan choly," w^as extremely facetious in conversation ; and the most ascetic poet of our own day, Lord Byron, was one of the most brilliant and humorous of asso ciates when he mingled with the world. 70 Mosaics. That singular writer, Robert Burton, is said, by Anthony Wood, to have composed his " Anatomy " in order to divert his own " melancholy." So great was the demand for this book, when first published, that the bookseller is said to have acquired an estate by it. In the intervals of his vapors, he was the most facetious companion in the university. When he felt a depres sion coming upon him, he used to relieve his melan choly by going to the foot of the bridge, and listening to the coarse ribaldry of the bargemen, which seldom failed to throw him into a fit of laughter. " The Comforts of Human Life," by R. Heron, were written in a prison, under the most distressing circum stances. " The Miseries of Human Life," by Beresford, were, on the contrary, composed in a drawing-room, where the author was surrounded by all the good things of this world. A striking contrast will often be found to exist between authors and their works, melan choly writers being usually the most jocular and lively in society, and humorists in theory the most lugubrious of animals in practice. A man of letters is often a man with two natures : one a book nature, the other a human nature. These two often clash sadly. Homer had such instinctive aversion to music, that it is reported he could not be prevailed upon even to walk along the banks of a murmuring brook ; yet tra dition also asserts that he sung his own ballads. Seneca wrote in praise of poverty, on a table formed of solid gold, with millions let out at usury. Sterne was a very selfish man; yet, as a writer, Author-Craft. 71 excelled in pathos and charity. At one time beating his wife, at another, wasting his sympathies over a dead donkey. Sallust, who so eloquently declaims against the licen tiousness of the age, was repeatedly accused in the senate of public and habitual debaucheries. Steele wrote excellently on temperance, when he was sober. Johnson s essays on politeness were admirable ; yet his " You lie, sir !" and " You don t understand the question, sir !" were the common characteristics of his colloquies. Young, whose gloomy fancy cast such sombre tinges on life, was in society a brisk, lively man, continually pelting his hearers with puerile puns. Mrs. Carter, fresh from the stern, dark grandeur of the " Night Thoughts," expressed her amazement at his flippancy. " Madame," said he, " there is much difference between writing and talking." The same poet s favorite theme was the nothingness of worldly things ; his favorite pursuit was rank and riches. Had Mrs. Carter noticed this incongruity, he might have added : " Madam, there is much difference between writing didactic poems, and living didactic poems." Bacon, the most comprehensive and forward-looking of modern intellects, and in feeling one of the most benevolent, was meanly and contemptibly ambitious of place ; and while teaching morals, we find him taking bribes. More, in his " Utopia," declares that no man ought 72 Mosaics. to be punished for his religious belief, yet is he found to be among the active persecutors of the opponents of his own. Rousseau with the same pen we find giving versions of the Psalms, and the most infamous of epigrams. And our melancholy Cowper, who passed so many dark days of religious depression, we find devoting the hours of night to the production of the mirth-moving story of " John Gilpin." " Truly," has it been observed, " that chapter which shall have to deal with all the oddities and anomalies of literary life must be long and curious, infinitely various in its illustration, and deep in its insight and its philosophy." * Glowingly eloquent is the tribute paid to the sons of genius, by one of their number.f These are his words : " They stand, like towers of strength, athwart the desolation of agesthat hath swept over the reputa tion of the rest ; their names are like the ruins of ancient temples and palaces in a desert city, where a level bed of sand hath hidden in darkness all meaner places. A Homer, a Socrates, a Plato, an Archimedes, a Newton these are the giants of the soul, the pleni potentiaries of the intellect, who redeem the reputation of the intellect. These men cared not for the body, but, like St. Paul, they groaned under it, and made their moan in the ear of God, who, listening to their prayer, gave them victory. The intellect, which is weighed down with a fleshly load, achieved its redemption ; it wandered abroad into the regions of the handiworks of God ; it dived into the mysteries of the soul, and dis- * Athenaeum. t Edward Irving. Author-Craft. 73 coursed over the fields of wisdom, inditing matchless sayings, and dressing feasts of fancy and of reason for all ages of mankind. They are the royal priesthood of mind, sphered above the sphere of kings, great and glorious beyond all heroes and conquerors of the earth." In soberly estimating the character of the gifted and illustrious sons of science and song, we must not suffer ourselves to be so blinded by the brilliancy of their genius as to forget that they are morally responsible for the right use of their endowments. Whenever, therefore, they are found to desecrate their gifts to ignoble ends, they cease to command our reverent regard. True greatness, true nobility of character, consists in an aesthetic love of virtue, and a devout recognition of our moral responsibility. To abhor the evil, and adhere to the good, is the highest style of heroism; it is the loftiest of human attainments. Mere intellectual eminence has less of glory in it ; but when learning and genius are degraded to the service of human passion and human crime, their glory is then, indeed, obscured. Of such it has been said, that " his life is but the funeral procession of a soul moving on to the final judgment, lighted on its way by the gloomy sepulchral torch of genius." Thousands may admire the brilliancy of his wit, while the reflecting few regard it as the phosphorescence of moral decay. "With just force, exclaims the poet, " When I behold a genius bright but base, Of splendid talents, but terrestrial aims, Mosaics. Methinks I see, as thrown from her high sphere, The glorious fragment of a soul immortal, With rubbish mixed, and glittering in the dust." Who does not cherish with a loving reverence the household names of Cowper and Wordsworth, of Milton and Montgomery, for the exalted morality they teach, and which so beautifies their muse? But it must ever be otherwise, where this element is wanting, as, to some extent, in the instances of Moore, Shelley, Keats, Byron and Burns. They may all illustrate truth ; but the graces and enchantments of virtue are both pleasurable and profitable to portray and gaze upon, while its opposite must entail manifold evils. We close our desultory chapter with Carlgle s admirable portraiture of the literary character its lights and shadows delicately blended : " If to know wisdom," he remarks, " were to practise it ; if fame brought true dignity and peace of mind, or happiness consisted in nourishing the intellect with its appropri ate food, and surrounding the imagination with ideal beauty, a literary life would be the most enviable which the lot of this world affords. But the truth is far otherwise. The man of letters has no immutable, all-conquering volition, more than other men ; to understand and to perform, are two very different things with him, as with every one. His fame rarely exerts a favorable influence on his dignity of character, and never on his peace of mind ; its glitter is external for the eyes of others, within it is the aliment of unrest, the oil cast upon the ever-gnawing fire of ambition, quickening into fresh vehemence the blaze which it Author-Craft. 75 stills for a moment. Talent, of any sort, is generally accompanied with a peculiar fineness of sensibility ; of genius, this is the most essential constituent ; and life in any shape has sorrows enough for hearts so formed. The employments of literature sharpen this natural tendency; the vexations that accompany them fre quently exasperate it into morbid soreness. The cares and toils of literature are the business of life ; its de lights are too ethereal and too transient to furnish that perennial flow of satisfaction coarse, but plenteous and substantial of which happiness, in -this world of ours, is made. The most finished efforts of the mind give it little pleasure ; frequently they give it pain, for men s aims are ever far beyond their strength. And the outward recompense of these undertakings, the obstruction they confer, is of still smaller value ; the desire for it is insatiable, even when successful, and when baffled, it issues in jealousy and envy, and every pitiful and painful feeling. So pure a tem perament, with so little to restrain or satisfy, so much to distress or tempt it, produces contradictions which few are adequate to reconcile. Hence, the unhappiness of literary men; hence, their faults and foibles." YOUTH AND AGE. Life is a voyage, \n the progress of which we are perpetually changing our scenes. We first leave childhood behind us, then youth, then the years of ripened manhood, then the better and more pleasing part of old age. SENECA. 66 TTOPE writes the poetry of the boy," it has been * * beautifully said, " but memory that of the man." The cup of life is sweetest at the brim, the flavor is impaired as we drink deeper, and the dregs are made bitter that we may suffer the less regret when it is taken from our lips. |Torh Clamtfron rightly estimated life, when he said: "They who are most weary of life, and yet are most unwilling to die, are such as have lived to no purpose ; who have rather breathed than lived." ".We live in deeds, not years in thoughts, not breaths, In feelings, not in figures on the dial ; We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." * |Tortr ato has given us the same thought, yet * Bailey. 76 Youth and Age. 7T more tersely: "A man that is young in years," he said, " may be old in hours, if he have lost no time." " gentlemen ! the time of life is short; To spend that shortness basely, were too long, If life did ride upon a dial s point, Still ending at th arrival of an hour." * Poets, sages, and moralists have portrayed life by curious allegories and metaphors all suggestive of its illusions and its brevity. The German artist, Retzsch, has pictured it by a game of chess, with good and evil genii hovering over the players. " There are two angels that attend unseen Each one of us, and in great books record Our good and evil deeds. He who writes down The good ones, after every action, closes His volume, and ascends with it to God; The other keeps his dreadful day-book open Till sunset, that we may repent ; which doing, The record of action fades away, And leaves a line of white across the page." Human life has been compared to a book ; at each end of which there is a blank leaf infancy and old age. A modern humoristf looks at life in a different aspect. He says : " Life is a farce made up of a great number of ridi culous acts. So say the old and the cynical, when their performance approaches the epilogue, and the curtain is rung down by the prompter Time. * Shakspeare. t Alfred Ciowquill. 78 Mosaics. " Life is only a dream, in which it is very necessary to keep one s eyes open. " Life is a continual struggle after that which we cannot take with us, riches ; which seem given to us, as the nurse gives the child a pretty ornament or shell, from the mantelpiece, to keep it quiet until it falls asleep, when it drops from its helpless hands, and is replaced, to please other babies in their turn. " Life is a thing which most people seem in a great hurry to get rid of, if we may judge by the number of fast people now-a-days, who use themselves up, with the greatest apparent self-satisfaction. " Life is a pleasant piece of self-deceit, where we always lay our faults upon the shoulders of others, and positively consider ourselves the injured parties. If this fact could be more generally acknowledged, how little cause should we have for courts of law, where the weak-minded congregate to pay dearly for the judg ment of others, because they have none of their own. "Life for one, is a subscription from many, for, from the smallest to the largest created, the death of* others is necessary to their lives. " Life is a voyage, upon which we too often foolishly allow others to guide the helm, and are shipwrecked accordingly. " The sum of life is one of most difficult arithmetic, in which we all figure away ; full of false calculations and mistakes, which we only find out, when we go to strike the balance, and blush to own ourselves obliged to put down errors excepted. " Life is one long bill, which we accept, and are con- Youth and Age. 79 tinually paying off, with a doctor as the drawer and last indorser. " Life is a long lesson, which Dame Nature sets us, and which we are never able to learn, although we are con tinually chastised for not knowing it when we are called upon." Life has been supposed to be imaged by a ball-room, whose guests are constantly pouring in at one door, and out at the other, without apparent diminution of the number within; who are neither less gay nor more miserable on account of the perpetual entrance and exit at the two thresholds of Time and Eternity. And whoever looks into the ball-room in ages to come, will find its youth still as buoyant, as graceful and as beau tiful as ever, just as happy and unconcerned as if Death never had occurred, and never would occur upon earth. Oh Life ! the fascinating disguise with which Youth invests thee, is thy precious amulet, for it is their hands that encircle thy blooming fields with those gorgeous curtains which veil from the eye of conscious ness the rough scenery that lies beyond its retreating storms, its portentous clouds, its mournful retrospect ! In the citadel of Athens, there stood three statues of Minerva : the first of olive wood, which, according to tradition, had fallen from heaven ; the second was of bronze, commemorating the victory of Marathon ; and the third of gold and ivory a miracle of art in the age of Pericles. Thus, in the citadel of Time, stands man. In childhood, shaped delicately like the statue from heaven: in manhood, like that of bronze, com memorative of struggle and victory ; and in maturity 80 Mosaics. of age, like that of gold and ivory a full development of the " paragon of animals." gr. Jfrmg, looking at life more mournfully, describes it as " A weary interlude, Which doth short joys, long woes include ; The world s the stage, the prologue tears, The acts, vain hopes and varied fears : The scene shuts up, with loss of breath, And leaves no epilogue but Death." Man s mortality is thus described by an old poet :* " Like as the damask rose you see, Or like the blossom on the tree, Or like the dainty flower in May, Or like the morning of the day, Or like the sun, or like the shade, Or like the gourd which Jonas had, E en such is man whose thread is spun Drawn out and cut, and so is done The rose withers, the blossom blasteth, The flowers fade, the morning haste th, The gourd consumes and man, he dies !" Looking at the commonplace details which make up the sum total of too many human lives, Jpisljop Jjjiirrott thus soliloquized on the subject: "What is this life but a circulation of little mean actions ? We lie down and rise again, dress and undress, feed and grow hun gry, work or play, and grow weary and then lie down again and the circle returns." Are the simple routine of life s duties, therefore, to be despised ? or * Wastell, 1623. Youth and Age. 81 are they not rather to be esteemed as the true sources of social happiness ? How like a quiet pastoral poem reads the following picturesque description of them by a recent writer : * "The present life is sleeping and waking; it is Good Night on going to bed, and Good Morning on getting up ; it is to wonder what the day will bring forth ; it is sunshine and gloominess, it is rain on the window, as one sits by the fire ; it is to walk in a gar den, and see the flowers open, and hear the birds sing ; it is to have the postman bring letters ; it is to have news from the east, west, north, and south; it is to read old books and new books ; it is to see pictures and hear music ; it is to have Sundays ; it is to pray with a family, morning and evening ; it is to sit in the twilight and meditate ; it is to be well, and sometime to be ill ; it is to have business to do, and to do it ; it is to have breakfast, and dinner, and tea ; it is to have neighbors, and to be one in a circle of acquaintances ; it is to have friends to love one ; it is to have sight of dear old faces ; and, with some men, it is to be kissed daily by the same loving lips for* fifty years ; and it is to know themselves thought of many times a day, in many places, by children and grandchildren, and many friends. " If this is life, we fear that the great mass do not live. And if to these ingredients of life, be added the higher joys and longings of the spirit, how few truly live !" Contrast this picture with the artificial disguises and * Mountford a Euthanasy. 4* 82 Mosaic^ pageantries of what is called " high life ;" the one is real, the other counterfeit. Tertullian affirmed " that all personal disguise is adultery before God." The inequalities of wealth are really no cause for the inequalities of happiness. Happiness is to be obtained in the accustomed chair by the fireside, more than in the honorary occupation of civic offices ; in a wife s love infinitely more than in the favor of all beings else ; in children s innocent and joyous prattle, more than in the hearing of flattery ; in the reciprocation of little and frequent kindnesses between friend and friend, more than in the anxious achievements of wealth, dis tinction, and grandeur ; in change of heart more than in change of circumstances ; in full, firm trust in Pro vidence, more than in the fee-simple inheritance or whole acres of land ; in the observation of neatness and regularity, household virtues, rather than in the names of ostentation; and in the friendship of our next-door neighbor, more than in the condescending notice of our lord duke. Many will remember good old Jf^ac Malion s re marks : " I have a rich neighbor, that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh : the whole business of his life is to get money, and more money that he may still get more and more money. He is still drudging on, saying that Solomon says : The diligent hand maketh rich. And it is true, indeed ; but he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy ; for it was wisely said by a man of great obser vation, that there be as many miseries beyond riches as Youth and Age. 83 on this side of them. And yet God deliver us from pinching poverty, and grant that, having a compe tency, we may be content and thankful. Let us not repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see "another abound with riches, w^hen, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches, hang often so heavily at the rich man s girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly. We see but the outside of a rich man s happiness ; few consider him to be like the silk-worm, that, when she seems to play, is at the very same time consuming her self. And this many rich men do loading them selves with corroding cares to keep what they have already got. Let us, therefore, be thankful for health and competence, and, above all, for a quiet con science." He elsewhere, adds : " I will tell you, scholar, I have heard a grave divine say, that God has two dwellings ; one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart." (Quarks thus quaintly epitomizes the thought: " We are not rich or poor by what we possess, but by what we desire." One more passage, and we leave all further moralizing upon the subject to the reader : "There is no more perilous ordeal through which man can pass no greater curse which can be imposed upon him, as he is at present constituted than that of being condemned to walk his life long in the sunlight of unshadowed prosperity. His eyes ache with that too untempered brilliance he is apt to be smitten with a moral coup de soleil. But it as little follows that no 84: Mosaics. sunshine is good for us. He who made us, and who tutors us, alone knows what is the exact measure of light and shade, sun and cloud, storm, and frost, and heat, which will best tend to mature those flowers which are the object of his celestial husbandry ; and which, when transplanted into the paradise of God, are to bloom there forever in amaranthine loveliness. Nor can it be without presumption that we essay to inter fere with these processes; our highest wisdom is to fall in with them." * An inordinate desire for gain too often is the prolific parent of crime, and like other vices, will not only mar our moral symmetry of character, but petrify the feelings and sensibilities. Let a man but once become the victim of avarice, and a long train of evils are sure to be entailed upon him. No amount of mere money can ever prove an equivalent for loss of purity and peace of conscience. " Over the beauty of the plum and apricot, there grows a bloom nnd beauty more exquisite than the fruit itself a soft, delicate blush, that overspreads its blushing cheek. Now if you strike your hand over that, and it is once gone, it is gone forever, for it never grows but once. The flower that hangs in the morn ing, impearled with dew arrayed as no queenly woman was ever arrayed with jewels once shake it, so that the beads roll off, and you may sprinkle water over it as you please, yet it can never be made what it was when the dew fell silently upon it from heaven ! On a frosty morning, you may see the panes of glass * Edinburgh Review. Youth and Age. 85 covered with landscapes, mountains, lakes, trees, blended in a beautiful, fantastic picture. Now, lay your hand upon the glass, and by the scratch of your finger, or by the warmth of your palm, all the delicate tracery will be obliterated. " So there is in youth a purity and beauty of charac ter, which, when once touched and defiled, can never be restored, a fringe more delicate than frost-work, and which, when torn and broken, will never be ree m- broidered. A man who has spotted and soiled his garments in youth, though he may seek to make them white again, can never wholly do it, even were he to wash them in his tears. When a young man leaves his father s house, with the blessing of his mother s tears still wet upon his forehead, if he once lose that early purity of character, it is a loss that he can never make whole again. Such is the consequence of crime." * Returning from our digression, we have now a few thoughts to present upon that poetic period brief as it is brilliant childhood : " Think of the gladness of thy youthful prime, It cometh not again that golden time !" The pleasant author of " Companions of my Soli tude," thus apostrophizes youth : " How beautiful a thing is youth ! In contemplating it, the world seems young again for us. Each young thing seems born to new hopes. Parents feel this for their children, hoping that something will happen to them quite difierent from what happened to them- * H. W. Beecher. 86 Mosaics. selves, else could they take all the pains they do with these young creatures, if they could believe that the young people were only to grow up into middle-aged men and Avomen with the usual cares and troubles descending upon them like a securely entailed inherit ance. There is something fanciful in all this, and in reality a grown up person is a much more valuable and worthy creature than most young ones : but still any thing that blights the young must ever be most repug nant to humanity." " Oh ! what a world of beauty fades away, With the winged hours of youth !" There is a beautiful mystery about infancy and child hood. It is natural for us to gaze upon a gentle child with feelings of love and something of reverence and wonder. " The soul that rises with us, our life s star, Hath elsewhere had its setting, And cometh from afar ; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But, trailing clouds of glory, do we come, From God, who is our home : Heaven lies about us in our infancy /" * Among the many eloquent passages we meet with on the subject, the following is not the least effective : " Little children are the poetry of the world the fresh flowers of our hearts and homes little conjurers, with natural magic, evoking by their spells what * Wordsworth. Youth and Age. 87 delights, and enriches all ranks, and equalizes the dif ferent classes of society. Often as they bring with them anxieties and cares, and live to occasion sorrow and grief, we should get on very badly without them. Only think if there was never anything anywhere to to be seen but great grown up men and women ! How we should long for the sight of a little child ! A child softens, purifies the heart, warming and melting it by its gentle presence ; it enriches the soul by new feel ings, and awakes within it what is favorable to virtue. O " It is a beam of light, a fountain of love, a teacher whose lessons few can resist. Infants recall us from much that engenders and encourages selfishness, that freezes the affections, roughens the manners, and indu rates the heart. They brighten the home, deepen love, invigorate exertion, infuse courage, and vivify and sustain the charities of life." " A happy childhood," said |saac aglor, " is a pre cious inheritance, with which, as a fund, to begin trad ing in a practical wisdom and active usefulness. It is a great thing only to have known by experience that tranquil, temperate happiness is actually attainable on earth ; and we should think so if we knew how many have pursued a reckless course because, or chiefly because, they early learned to think of happiness as a chimera, and believed momentary gratifications to be the only substitute placed within the reach of man. Practical happiness is much oftener thrown away than snatched from us ; but it is the most likely to be pur sued and overtaken, and husbanded by those who already, and during some considerable period of their 88 Mosaics. lives, have been happy. To have known nothing but misery is the most portentous condition under which human nature can start on its course." The sunny hours of childhood, How soon they pass away ; Like flowers in the wildwood, That once bloomed fresh and gay. This the perfume of the flowers, And the freshness of the heart, Live but a few brief hours, And then for aye depart ! Whose heart does not respond to the merry-toned and loving tribute which follows ? " Whoever takes a little child into his love, may have a brave roomy heart, but that child will fill it all. The children that are in the world keep us from grow ing old and cold ; they cling to our garments with their little hands, and impede our progress to petrification ; they win us back with their pleading eyes from cruel care ; they never encumber us at all. A poor old couple, with no one to love them, is a most pitiful pic ture ; but a hovel with a small face to fill a broken pane, here and there, as the stranger goes by, is robbed of half its desolateness. "A house full of children composes as powerful a group of motives as ever moved heart or hands, and the secret of many a gallant struggle and triumph in the world s battle may be found throned in its mother s lap at home, or done up in a little bundle of white flan nel. A nation s hope before now, has been found in a basket of bulrushes. Be afraid of the man that chil- Youth and Age. 89 ren are afraid of, and be sure that he who hates them is not himself worth loving. " When the last child is born and grown, Christmas may be struck from the calendar without being missed or mourned. " Blessings upon the little children, for of such as they arc is the kingdom of Heaven." " Blessed childhood ! God bless the little children ! We like their bright eyes, their happy faces, their win ning ways, their rosy dreams! Nothing seems to weigh down their buoyant spirits long ; misfortune may fall to their lot, but the shadows it casts upon their life-path are fleeting as the clouds that come and go in an April sky. Their future may, perchance, appear dark to others, but to their fearless gaze it looms up brilliant and beautiful as the walls of a fairy palace. There is no tear which a mother s gentle hand cannot heal, no anguish which the sweet murmurings of her soft, low voice cannot soothe. The warm, generous impulses of their nature have not been fettered and cramped by the cold formalities of the world ; they have not yet learned to veil a hollow heart with false smiles, or hide the basest purposes beneath honeyed words. Neither are they constantly on the alert to search out our faults and foibles with Argus eyes ; on the contrary, they exercise that blessed charity which thinketh no evil. " " What a joy to hurnaii eyes, What an angel in disguise, What a treasure, what a prize, Is the household baby ? " 90 Mosaics. The poet s lip and painter s hand have delighted to portray the grace and beauty of childhood. Here is a specimen poetic : " Bless God, for happy infancy ! it is a fountain bright, Upflashing to the cloudless sky beneath the morning light ; A fount becomes a river soon, that seeks a mystic sea, Where ceaseless chime moans out one sound for aye eternity. Bless God, for holy infancy ! the light of heaven lies, Undimmed by thought, unveiled by care, within its shining eyes, Hot tears will by and by blot out that soft, ethereal blue, And blanch the. glowing, rosy cheek into a pallid hue. Bless God for precious infancy, it is a golden shade, Upon the dusty web of life, by angel s fingers made ; The fairest, but the frailest part, the first to fade away, And so we prize it all the more, for its short and fleeting stay." * If there is such witchery in childhood s pure and sunny time, we must not forget that " the mind of childhood is also the tenderest, holiest thing this side of heaven. Is it not to be approached with gentleness, with love yes, with a heart-worship of the great God for whom, in almost angel innocence, it has proceeded ? A crea ture undefiled by the taint of the world, unvexed by its injustice, unwearied by its hollow pleasures. A being fresh from the source of light, with something of its universal lustre in it ? If childhood be this, how holy the duty to see that, in its onward growth, it shall be no other ! To stand as a watcher at the temple, lest any unclean thing should enter it.f Childhood, we repeat, in its innocence and joyous- ness, reflects its own light and happiness upon others, * Mary M. Chase. t Douglas Jerrold. Youth and Age. 91 like a Claude Lorraine glass, which imparts to all objects its own beautiful tints. What music is more thrilling than the happy laugh of a child ? "The human voice ! Organ finer, deeper, clearer, Though it be a stranger s tone ; Than the winds or waters dearer, More enchanting to the hearer ; For it answereth his own. But of all its witching words, Sweeter than the song of birds, Those are sweetest, bubbling wild Through the laughter of a child." * Is there anything like the ringing laugh of an inno cent, happy child ? Can any other music so deliciously thrill the heart ? It is sympathetic as well as joyous beyond all other melodies. The sunny smile and glad voice of childhood are a benison from heaven, the one has caught its hue, and the other its sweet harmony. "Well may gTongfeUofo s sweet refrain touch our. hearts : Ah ! what would the world be to us If the children were no more ? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before. What the leaves are to the forest, With light and air for food, Ere their sweet and tender juices Have been hardened into wood * Blanchard. 92 Mosaics. " That to the world are children ; Through these it feels the glow Of a brighter and sunnier climate Than reaches the trunks below. " Come to me, ye children I And whisper in my ear What the birds and the winds are singing In your sunny atmosphere. " For what are all our contrivings, And the wisdom of our books, When compared with your caresses, And the gladness of your looks ? " Ye are better than all the ballads That ever were sung or said ; For ye are living poems, And all the rest are dead." " Children may teach us one "blessed, one enviable art the art of being easily happy. Kind nature has given to them that useful power of accommodation to circumstances which compensates for many external disadvantages, and it is only by injudicious manage ment that it is lost. Give him but a moderate portion of food and kindness, and the peasant s child is happier than the duke s ; free from artificial wants, unsatiated by indulgence, all nature ministers to his pleasure ; he can carve out felicity from a bit of hazel twig, or fish for it successfully in a puddle. I love to hear the boisterous joy of a troop of ragged urchins, whose cheap play things are nothing more than mud, snow, sticks, or oyster-shells ; or to watch the quiet enjoyment of a Youth and Age. 93 half-clothed, half-washed fellow of four or five years old, who sits, with a large, rusty knife, and a lump of bread and bacon, at his father s door, that might move the envy of an alderman." Childhood often holds a truth with its feeble fingers, which the grasp of manhood cannot retain, which it is the pride of utmost age to recover. gouglas |errolb says : " Blessed be the hand that prepares a pleasure for a child, for there is no saying when and where it may bloom forth. Does not almost everybody remember some kind-hearted man who showed him a kindness in the days of his childhood ?" " Once on a time, when sunny May Was kissing up the April showers, I saw fair childhood hard at play Before a bank of blushing flowers ; Happy, he knew not whence or how ; And smiling who would choose but love him ? For not more glad than childhood s brow Was the gay heaven that laughed above him. ***** Pale manhood s dreama Are all of earthly pain or pleasure ; Of glory s toils, ambitious schemes, Or cherished love, or hoarded treasure ; But to the couch, where childhood lies, A pure, unmingled trance is given, Lit up by rays from seraph s eyes, And glimpses from remembered heaven." * After childhood comes boyhood ; and as no better definition can be furnished of this notorious and never- * Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. 94: Mosaics. to-be-forgotten class, we subjoin the humorous lines of fooir: 44 The proper study of mankind is man The most perplexing one, no doubt, is woman ; The subtlest study that the mind can scan, Of all deep problems, heavenly or human. " But of all studies in the round of learning, From Nature s marvels down to human toys, To minds well fitted for acute discerning, The very queerest one is that of boys ! 44 If to ask questions that would puzzle Plato, And all the schoolmen of the middle age If to make precepts worthy of old Cato, Be deemed philosophy your boy s a sage ! 44 If the possession of a teeming fancy (Although, forsooth, the youngster doesn t know it), Which he can use in rarest necromancy, Be thought poetical, your boy s a poet! 44 If a strong will and most courageous bearing ; If to be cruel as the Roman Nero ; If all that s chivalrous, and all that s daring, Can make a hero, then the boy s a hero ! 44 But changing soon with his increasing stature, The boy is lost in manhood s riper age, And with him goes his former triple nature No longer Poet, Hero, now, nor Sage !" Loud and popular are the complaints alleged against boys, by mothers and sisters, on account of their aggressive acts and misdemeanors ; but as it is not our Youth and Age. 95 province to impeach them, we rather present the fol lowing plea in their behalf: " It has cost the world ages of experience to earn an appreciation of the position and character of woman, and we have not yet attained to a knowledge of the true position, requirements, and character of the child. One reason for this ignorance may be due to the fact, that the study of the condition of childhood requires the mind to turn back upon itself, and observe its own motions, a mental process contrary to the habits of nature. Look at the manifold different systems of edu cation. One might suppose that the mind of the child was made for curious experiments, to find by what variety of place, or by what clipping and coaxing, it might be brought to assume a certain style of growth, without ever being suffered to put forth the laws of its own nature. We cannot but look upon that class of beings stigmatized by the term boys with some lively touch of pity. Particularly when transplanted from the soil where they were born, and placed under foreign influences, are they deserving of this humane sentiment. Would any man who has passed a moderately comfort able life be willing to live over the decade between his fifth and fifteenth year ? Does any one feel a response in his heart to that lyrical wish, now popularized by the street organ, to be a boy again ? The truth is, that the boy, as regards his conception of his own nature and its due education, is in advance of his age. He is not understood, or is misunderstood. We arro gantly put him into that class which Sir William Black- stone denominates ferce naturae, and base our plans for Mosaics. his improvement upon the assumption of his total depravity. He has ambition which burns out in disap pointment ; he has dreams of heroism and love which he dares not confide to another; he has keen sensi bilities which his elders do not forbear to taunt or to disregard; he has an understanding of matters whereof he is assumed to be absurdly ignorant ; he has aching doubts about life and death which he knows not where to satisfy. Often, like one who wanders in the dark, his undeveloped reason and half-knowledge fail to guide him through the night into which his more mature fancy hurries him, and he stumbles over chasms, or starts at those awful phantoms of the brain which the firmness of riper intellect cannot at all times exercise. The loneliness of night, the mystery of the heavens, the sadness of good bye, fill his imagination and grasp his whole soul with a power which lessens as he advances in years. Like young Albano, in Jean Paul s delect able romance of Titan, he has to restrain and hide within himself all his emotions, his longings, his pre cious thoughts, for fear of some- stern father or some domesticated Diogenes ; or, if he ventures to unbosom himself to an imagined friend of his own age, asking only for the bread of sympathy which his heart craves, it is but to find himself possessed of the scorpion of treachery and neglect, and, perhaps, at last he flies to the beauty of some amiable girl, whom his ardent enthusiasm clothes with every grace and every virtue, who smiles upon him and comprehends him no more than he comprehends the ocean." * * North American Review. Youth and Age. 97 Dr. Johnson used to say, that a boy at school is the happiest of human beings. If he had added, that youth k riot only the happiest period of life, but also the best, iii the highest sense of the word, perhaps there would not be given so general a consent as to the maxim which he has enunciated. Graceful, engaging, interest ing, every one would allow it to be. The dewy fresh ness of the morning, the soft fragrance of spring, the tender beauty of a budding flower, are the images that naturally belong to that stage of existence. It is very good for all to dwell much in the presence of the young. The strange and unanswerable questions which children are continually asking, inadequate utterances of unutterable thoughts, convict the proudest intellect of its ignorance. Their trustful and affectionate confi dence in others, rebukes the suspicious caution of expe- rienced manhood. The unstudied grace of every " breeze-like motion," the gladsomeness of the " self- born carol," their free and full enjoyment of everything beautiful and glorious around them these, and such like traits, are angelic rather than human : they speak of innocence, and happiness, and love. Nor is boyhood an ineloquent teacher. Its generous ardor, its daunt less activity, its chivalrous sense of honor, its fond attachments, its hopefulness, and truthfulness, its clear, bright eye, fair cheek, light and joyous frame how strangely unlike is all this to the wrinkled brow and heavy tread, the callous and deliberate selfishness by which it is too often succeeded ? Much, very much is to be learned from the young." * * North British Review. 98 Mosaics. It is to be regretted that the recollections of child hood and youth in most persons so soon grow dim and perish obliterated from the heart by the noisy waves of active life that men can so seldom trace their way back to that early romance of life. Those Happy days that were as long As twenty days are now, with each to-morrow, as it then seemed, severed from yesterday by a solid barrier, as it were, in the interven ing night : those scenes where no thought of change or decay ever intruded, but which, as well as the actors in them, were unconsciously regarded as destined to abide for ever how shall their memory be lost, except by a violent and unnatural renunciation of the former self? " The boy of the great metropolis is, as we all know, one of the most fearful products of civilization. He is the true enfant terrible of modern society perpe tually getting between its legs, tripping it up, making game of its dignitaries, pilfering its small wares, upset ting its apple-stands, breaking its windows and its laws, exasperating its elderly gentlemen to the verge of apoplexy, and heartlessly deluding and betraying its unprotected females. He slips through the fingers of the police, dodges the whole force of the detectives, and is wider awake than any conceivable vigilance committee." * That boys should be generally so troublesome, is not surprising, when it is remembered that they are freighted with an exuberance of animal spirits their * The Century. Youth and Age. 99 principal stock in trade, and therefore, like a high- pressure engine, they must obey the propelling power. It is a duty we owe in kind, therefore, to give them a right direction ; for we must remember that we have no other way of atoning for our own boyish delinquen cies and transgressions. " Boys, when they are boys, are queer enough ! How many ridiculous notions they have, and what singular desires, which in after life change and shape themselves into characteristics ? Who remembers when he would have sold his birth right for a rocking-horse, and his new suit of clothes for a monkey ? Who forgets the sweet-faced girl older than himself, against whose golden hair he leaned, and wept his grief away ? Who rqcollects when in imagination to be a circus- rider appeared greater than to be a prince; and how jealously he watched the little fellows that wore spangled jackets, and turned somersets, and longed to become like them ? If memory preserve not these capacities, or something similar, the boy is lost in the man. Happy visions ! they come but once." Some carry the idiosyncrasies of boyhood with them even to old age; these are technically styled " old boys." It is well enough to cherish the animus of youth, but not its follies; its freshness of feeling, but not its absurdities and errors. It has been humorously said that we love our mothers and sweetmeats at three years of age ; our fathers at six ; at ten, our holidays ; at fifteen, dress ; at twenty-five, our wives; at forty, our children, and at sixty, ourselves ! The last clause of the indictment, 100 Mosaics. we hope, is not valid, as a general rule ; since the highest moral attainment is self-negation. "Youth has a sprightliuess and fire to boast, That in the valley of decline are lost, And virtue with peculiar charms appears, Crown d with the garland of life s bloomimg years ; Yet age, by long experience well iuform d, Well read, well temper d, with religion warm d, That fire abated, which impels rash youth, Proud of his speed, to overshoot the truth, As time improves the grape s authentic juice, Mellows and makes the speech more fit for use, And claims a rev rence in its short ning day, That tis an honor and a joy to pay.* " It is only to those who live, in some degree, the true life of self-denial, that the inward vision grows clearer. They see, as the years advance, how wisely and lovingly the divine Providence guarded all their steps, and ever out of seeming evil brought real good. How they were led, by a way which they knew not, through the tangled mazes of life, their paths ever winding, by scarcely perceived spirals, upwards and upwards. Even the afflictions and misfortunes that for years shadowed their lives, they now acknowledge as heaven-sent blessings. " Life has for an observer such a quick succession of interest and adventure, that it is almost impossible we should feel weary of it. No one day resembles another. Every hour, every minute, opens new stores to our experience and new excitement to our curiosity. * Cowper. Youth and Age. 101 We are always on the eve of some new event. Like the moth, we are forever flying towards a star but with this difference, that we attain it; and if some times we find the halo that we fancied a glory is but a mist, at least we have learned a lesson. If we look upon life merely as humble students, we shall not find any great bitterness at such disappointments. It is only when we hug our ignorance to our hearts, that we are and deserve to be miserable when we embrace the cloud, that we lose the goddess. But if we open the eyes of the mind, and determine to be neither wantonly stupid nor inattentive, an enchanted world begins to rise from chaos. The aspect even of the room in which we sit grows lively with a thousand unsuspected curiosities. We discern that the most ordinary person is invested with some noticeable characteristic. If we deign to look but five pleasant minutes at any commonplace thing, we become aware of its peculiar beauty ; and there is not a bird that wings through the air, nor a flower that blossoms in the garden, nor an insect that crawls on the earth, nor a fish that swims the water, but has its own singular and delightful story," * Hibttrj) J$mii|j has supplied us with a good recipe for making every day happy and profitable. Here it is : " When you rise in the morning, form the resolution to make the day a happy one to a fellow creature. It is easily done ; a left-off garment to the man who needs ; a kind word to the sorrowful, an encouraging expression to the striving trifles in themselves light * Household Words. 102 Mosaics. as air will do at least for twenty-four hours ; and if you are young, depend upon it, it will tell when you are old ; and if you are old, rest assured it will send you gently and happily down the stream, of human time to eternity. By the most arithmetical sum look at the result ; you send one person, only one, happily through the day that is three hundred and sixty-five in the course of a year; and suppose you live forty years only after you have commenced that course of medi cine, you have made 14,600 human beings happy, at all events for a time. Now, worthy, is this not simple ? It is too short for a sermon, too homely for ethics, and too easily accomplished for you to say, I would if I could. " As happiness is what all seek, take another admoni tory instance : A person who had struggled through many diffi culties without repining, and being much opposed without ever manifesting impatience, being asked by a friend to communicate the secret of his being always so happy, replied : " It consists in a single thing, and that is, making a right use of my eyes." His friend, in surprise, begged him to explain his meaning. " Most willingly," was the answer. " In whatsoever state I am, I first of all look up to heaven, and re member that my great business on earth is to get there. I then look down upon the earth, and call to my mind how small a space I shall soon fill in it. I then look abroad on the world, and see what multi tudes there are, in all respects, less happy than myself. And thus I learn where true happiness is placed, where Youth and Age. 103 all my cares must end, and how little reason I ever have to murmur, or to be otherwise than thankful. And to live in this spirit is to be always happy." " When I am old and oh ! how soon, While life s sweet morning yields to noon, And noon s broad, fervent, earnest light Be shadowed in the solemn night ! Till, like a story well-nigh told, Will seem my life, when I am old. When I am old, this breezy earth Will lose for me its voice of mirth The streams will have an undertone Of sadness not by right their own ; And spring s sweet power in vain unfold Its rosy charms when I am old. When I am old oh ! how it seems Like the wild lunacy of dreams, To picture in prophetic rhyme That dim, far distant, shadowy time ! So distant that it seems o er bold Even to say, when I am old ! E er I am old then let me give My life to learning how to live ! Then shall I meet with willing heart An early summons- to depart, Or find my lengthened days consoled By God s sweet peace when I am old." A recent pen portrays the happy man, as " One whose calling fits him, and he likes it, rejoices in its process as much as in its result. He has an active mind, well filled. He reads and he thinks. He tends his garden before sunrise, every morning tht n rides sundry miles by rail does his ten hours work in the 104: Mosaics. town whence he returns happy and cheerful. With his own smile he catches the earliest smile of the morn ing, plucks the first rose of his garden, and goes to his work with the little flower in his hand and a great one blossoming out of his heart. He runs over with charity, as a cloud with rain ; and it is with him as with the cloud what coming from the cloud is rain to the meadows, is a rainbow of glories to the cloud that pours it out. The happiness of the affections fills up the good man, and he runs over with friendship and love ; connubial, parental, filial, friendly too, and phi lanthropic, besides. His life is a perpetual trap to catch a sunbeam, and it always c springs and takes it in. I know no man who gets more out of life ; and the secret of it is, that he does his duty to himself, to his brother, and to his God. " This world s not all a fleeting show, For man s illusion given. He that hath sooth d a widow s woe, Or wiped an orphan s tear, doth know There s something here of Heaven. " And he that walks life s thorny way, With feelings calm and even Whose path is lit from day to day By virtue s bright and steady ray, Hath something felt of Heaven. " He that the Christian course hath ran, And all his foes forgiven. And measured out life s little span, In love to God and love to man, On earth hath tasted Heaven." Youth and Age. 105 JtTore was an excellent mentor, and in the fol lowing paragraph, we have some useful suggestions touching the trials of life : " Life is not entirely made up of great evils or heavy trials ; but the perpetual recurrence of petty evils and small trials in the ordinary and appointed exercise of the Christian graces. To bear with the failings of those about us with their infirmities, their bad judg ment, their ill-breeding, their perverse tempers to endure neglect when we feel we deserve attention, and ingratitude when we expect thanks to bear with the company of disagreeable people whom Providence has placed in our way, and whom He has perhaps provided or purposed for the trial of our virtues these are the best exercises of patience and self-denial, and the better because not chosen by ourselves. To bear with vexa tion in business, with disappointment in our expecta tions, with interruptions of our retirement, with folly, intrusion, disturbance in short, with whatever opposes our will, contradicts our humor this habitual acqui escence appears to be more of the essence of self-denial than any little rigors or inflictions of our own imposing. These instant, inevitable, but inferior evils, properly improved, furnish a good moral discipline, and might, in the days of ignorance, have superseded pilgrimage and penance." IPrs. fumans beautiful lines come fittingly in here : " The gloomiest day hath gleams of light, The darkest wave hath bright foam near it, And twinkles through the cloudiest night Some solitary star to cheer it. 5* 106 Mosaics. " The gloomiest soul is not all gloom, The saddest heart is not all sadness, And sweetly o er the darkest doom, There shines some lingering beam of gladness. " Despair is never quite despair : Nor life nor death the future closes; And round the shadowy brow of Care, Will Hope and Fancy twine their roses." It has been well said that little things make up the sum total of life ; and little habits that of character. They are the seedlings of character. The true estimate of an individual is not to be ascertained by his acci dental or occasional achievements, but by his every-day habits " Small sands, the mountain ; Moments make up time, and trifles, life." " Take life like a man. Take it just as though it was as it is an earnest, vital, essential affair. Take it just as though you personally were born to the task of performing a merry part in it as though the world had waited for your coming. Take it as though it was a grand opportunity to do and to achieve, to carry for ward great and good schemes ; to help and cheer a suffer ing, weary, it may be heart-broken brother. The fact is, life is undervalued by a great majority of mankind. It is not made half as much of as should be the case. Where is the man, or woman, who accomplishes one tithe of what might be done ? Who cannot look back upon opportunities lost, plans unachieved, thoughts crushed, aspirations unfulfilled, and all caused from the Youth and Age. 10T lack of the necessary and possible effort ! If we knew better how to take and make the most of life, it would be far greater than it is. Now and then a man stands aside from the crowd, labors earnestly, steadfastly, confidently, and straightway becomes famous for wis dom, intellect, skill, greatness of some sort. The world wonders, admires, idolizes ; and yet it only illus trates what each may do if he takes hold of life with a purpose. If a man but say he will, and follows it up, there is nothing in reason he may not expect to accomplish. There is no magic, no miracle, no secret to him who is brave in heart and determined in spirit." * iJUiskm observes: a We are not sent into this world to do anything into which we cannot put our hearts. We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be done strenuously; other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done heartily. Neither is to be done by halves and shifts, but with a will ; and what is not worth the effort is not to be done at all. Per haps all that we have to do is meant for nothing more than an exercise of the heart and will, and is useless in itself; but, at all events, the little use it has may well be spared, if it is not worth putting our hands and our strength to." Next to faith in divine Providence, a man should have faith in himself. A self-reliant, courageous, and earnest spirit, is the secret-lever power that reduces all difficulties, and makes a man strong as a pillar of gra nite. To a man of courage the evils of life, like the * London Journal. 108 Mosaics. hills which alarm travellers on the road, are easily su - mounted. Happiness and misery are the two elements out of which the ever-working chemistry of life pro duces endless compounds ; in each case giving a unique specimen without its exact parallel anywhere ; and it depends upon ourselves how much of moral good shall result therefrom. In fine, " Let us not murmur at what we are, or repine at what we cannot be. Let us accept existence as it is given ; and in the circumstances of life do the best we can. It is enough for a man to be himself, patiently to bear his own trials, and proceed hopefully and earnestly to the acquisition of those excellences that will fit him for heaven." " Men," says |pr. pail, "who have half a dozen irons in the fire, are not the ones to go crazy. It is the man of voluntary or compelled leisure who mopes and pines, and moans himself into the madhouse or the grave. Motion is all Nature s law. Action is man s salvation, physical and mental. And yet, nine out of ten are wistfully looking forward to the coveted hour when they shall have leisure to do nothing, or something, only if they feel like it the very Siren that has lured to death many a successful man. He only is truly wise who lays himself out to work till life s latest hour, and that is the man who will live the longest, and will live to most purpose." " The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together : our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not ; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues." * * Shakspeare. Youth and Age. 109 : List not then to the siren s wooing, Speed ye o er the mystic wave; Slothful rest is the soul s undoing Pleasure s couch is Virtue s grave." * Life s great lesson is to learn to live ; and our life- guage is not to be measured by its years, but by its harvest of thoughts and deeds. " Tis not the number of the lines On Life s fast filling page ; Tis not the pulse s added throbs Which constitute their age. " Some souls are serfs among the free, While others nobly thrive ; They stand just where their fathers stood; Dead, even while they live ! " Others, all spirit, heart and sense; Their s the mysterious power To live, in thrills of joy or woe, A twelvemonth in an hour ! " Seize, then, the minutes as they pass The woof of life is THOUGHT ! Warm up the colors let them glow, By fire or fancy fraught. " Live to some purpose make thy life A gift of use to thee ! A joy, a good, a golden hope, A heavenly argosy !" " When a man is quietly journeying downwards into the valley of the shadow of departed youth, and * Duganne. 110 Mosaics. begins to contemplate in a shortened perspective, the end of his pilgrimage, he becomes more solicitous than ever that the remainder of his wayfaring should be smooth and pleasant ; and the evening of his life, like the evening of a summer s day, fade away in wild, uninterrupted serenity. If, haply, his heart has escaped uninjured through the dangers of a seductive world, it may then administer to the purest of his feli cities, and its chords vibrate the more musically for the trials they have sustained ; like the viol which yields a melody sweet in proportion to its age." * Such a one may adopt .the beautiful line of Wordsworth : " The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction." A well-spent life insures a calm and beautiful old age : though its summer heats may be succeeded by its autumn s colder skies, yet those skies will be sunny and serene. There is something stately and grand in vener able age, when crowned with the spoils of learning and virtue, that instinctively commands our reverence and admiration. "Winter, which strips the leaves from around us, makes us see the distant regions they formerly con cealed," says Jean Paul ; and so does old age rob us of our enjoyment only to enlarge the prospect of eternity before us. " There is something very beautiful in the contemplation of grey hairs, and honorable old . age. It is the harvest hour of mortality, when the ripened * Salmagundi. Youth and Age. Ill experience shines forth, like fields of golden grain ready for the sickle. There is a quiet repose and stea diness about the happiness of old age, if the life has been well spent, that robs its feebleness of all painful suggestions. There is in that still noble, though wrinkled brow, so much that speaks of wisdom in that eye, such philosophical expression that one feels overpowered with profound respect in such a pre sence." "Say not the lot of age is one of bitterness and tears, That thorns and tares are garner d in with every sheaf of years. Ah no, the step may falter more, the eyes grow weak and dim, But the heart retains its freshness, though decay may touch each limb." We quote a worthy tribute to old age, by a divine of past times : * " A good old man is .the best antiquity, and which we may with least vanity admire : one whom time hath been thus long a working, and, like winter fruit, ripened when others are shaken down. He hath taken out as many lessons of the world as days, and learned the best thing in it the vanity of it. He looks over his former life as a danger well past, and would not hazard himself to begin again. The next door of death sads him not, but he expects it calmly as his turn in nature ; and fears more his recoiling back to child ishness than dust. All men look on him as a common father, and on old age, for his sake, as a reverent thing. He practises his experience on youth without the * Bishop Earle. 112 Mosaics. harshness of reproof, and in his counsel, his good com pany. He has some old stories still of his own see ing to confirm what he says, and makes them "better in the telling ; yet is not troublesome neither with the same tale again, but remembers with them how oft he has told them. He is not apt to put the boy on a younger man, nor the fool on a boy, but can distin guish gravity from a sour look ; and the less testy he is the more regarded. You must pardon him if he likes his own times better than these, because those things are follies to him now, that were wisdom then ; yet, he makes us of that opinion, too, when we see him, and conjecture those times by so good a relic. He goes away at last too soon whensoever, with all men s sorrow but his own ; and his memory is fresh when it is twice as old." And, as a fitting counterpart, we annex a passage by $jl. |j. SStillis, which must meet a response in every gentle nature. " Men differ (if asked at fifty years of age) as to what has most pleased and flattered them in life ; and I may take the liberty to say, perhaps (while thus turn ing over one of the brightest of the gold links in my chain of memories), that, of all in this world which has seemed to fall naturally to my lot, nothing has lain so sweetly close to the tear-fountain of my heart as the love which I have experienced from old men. It has been neither chance-found nor rare. Years ago I blessed God, that in every land to which I travelled, there awaited me a grey-haired friendship and blessing. The subdued tenderness, the disinterestedness, the wise Youth and Age. 113 care and counsel, the cheerfulness with its touch of melancholy, and the ripe and safe goodness of such friends, made them always seem priceless to me trea sures to find, anywhere." The due respect and deference to age is an obligation we cannot intermit without dishonor to ourselves : to content ourselves with mere negative duties, is little better than the barbarians who throw their aged parents into the Ganges. Give, in every condition, the places of honor and preference to seniority, and a double share of courtesy and affectionate regard. How picturesque is a venerable old face. There is a serious interest in an old face ; it is more than a face it is a memorandum-book, a chronicle of the past it is one of life s clocks, which tell us how late it is ; it is a living and walking dream there is some particular history connected with all its varied aspects there is not a smile or a look which does not call up a vision of the past, and with every vision there is some instructive homily. 41 There s beauty in age, though the pride of our prime May shrink from the touch of the angel of Time ; There s a brightening hue of a holier Heaven To the failing form by the spirit given The halo of Hope sublime ! " Though bedimm d by the frequent falling tears, Is the silver crown of our hoary years, With its jewels of honor and trustful truth, More bright than the golden circlet our youth On its brow triumphal bears. Mosaics. " From that beauty may wither its fashion frail, All the roses of hopeful health may pale ; But the loving look and the smile of peace May be ours when the pulses of pleasure cease, And the fires of passion fail. " Oh, the fair young features may well give place To the glory of thought on an aged face, And the loveliest lip that is folly-fraught To the mouth of the old when its words are wrought Of wisdom and gentle grace ! " All the beauties of youth shall too swiftly fade, Ere life s summer hath set, its autumn decay d ; But the beauty of age shall the brighter bloom Beyond the short shadows of Time and the tomb A beauty immortal made!" " To grow old gracefully, as one who truly has exemplified her theory has written and expressed it, is a good and beautiful thing ; to grow old worthily, a better. And the first effort to that end is not only to recognize, but to become personally reconciled to the fact of youth s departure ; to see, or, if not seeing, to have faith in the wisdom of that which we call change, yet which is in truth progression ; to follow openly and fearlessly, in ourselves and our own life, the same law which makes spring pass into summer, summer into autumn, autumn into winter, preserving an especial beauty and fitness in each of the four." Vilabtime be Jliacl has remarked : " When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not the decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality." Youth and Age. " We have no wings ; we cannot soar, But we have feet to scale and climb By slow degrees, by more and more, The cloudy summits of our time. " The mighty pyramids of stone, That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, When nearer seen and better known, Are but gigantic flights of stairs. " The distant mountains that uprear Their solid bastions to the skies, Are crossed with pathways, that appear As we to higher levels rise. " The heights by great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night/ * " To secure to the old that influence which they are willing to claim, and which might so much contribute to the improvement of the arts of life, it is absolutely necessary that they give themselves up to the duties of declining years ; and contentedly resign to youth its levity, its pleasures, its frolics, and its fopperies. It is a hopeless endeavor to unite the contrarieties of spring and winter ; it is unjust to claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood. The young always form magnificent ideas of the wisdom and gravity of men, whom they consider as placed at a dis tance from them in the ranks of existence, and natu rally look on those whom they find trifling with long * Longfellow. 116 Mosaics. beards, with contempt and indignation, like that which women feel at the effeminacy of men. " Some old men forget that they are old, and some that they ever were young : the first are ridiculous in the imitation, the latter peevish in the restraint of youthful gaiety. This is, generally, the effect neither of good-nature in the one, nor of wisdom in the other ; but results, in the first, from a foolish vanity, or from an incapacity for those better employments and plea sures which suit their age ; in the latter, from a splenetic regret of their incapacity for those employments and pleasures which suit it not." * But probably the reader will think we have moralized enough upon the subject. Should any wish to pursue the theme further, they are referred to Sir Thomas Bar nard s " Comforts of Old Age," and to Cicero. If any having the premonitions of senility should be conning over these pages, and should be tempted to surrender themselves to sundry gloomy forebodings, we com mend to them Ulrs. Cofobm Clarke s excellent counsel thereon : " To take events cheerfully, and to promote the hap piness of others, is the way to insure enduring spring of existence. Content and kindness are the soft vernal showers and fostering sunny warmth, that keep a man s nature and being fresh and green. Lord, keep my existence fresh and green, would be no less wise a prayer than the one so beautifully recorded respecting a man s memory. If we would leave a fragrant memory behind us, there is no way better to secure it than by * Lounger. Youth and Age. 117 living worthily. A cheerful and benign temper, that buds forth pleasant blossoms, and bears sweet fruit for those who live within its influence, is sure to produce an undying growth of green encumbrances, that shall flourish immediately after the parent stock is decayed and gone." Envy can dig as deep lines in the human face as Time s " iron fingers ;" therefore, we should cherish a contented spirit, and ever look on the bright side of things ; thus a perpetual springtide, with its garniture of gay flowers, will deck our pathway. Steele once bluntly remarked : " A healthy old fellow, who is not a fool, is the happiest creature living." A hale, hearty old man, who has jostled through the rough path of the world, without having worn away the fine edges of his feelings, or blunted his sensibility to natural and moral beauty, may be compared to the evergreen of the forest, whose colors, instead of fading at the approach of winter, seem to assume additional lustre. " Call him not old, whose visionary brain Holds o er the past its undivided reign. For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul. If yet the minstrel s song, the poet s lay, Spring with her birds, or children with their play, Or maiden s smile, or heavenly dream of art, Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart Turn to the record where his years are told Count his grey hairs they cannot make him old!" $ewmg Collier said that " Intellectual pleasures are of a nobler kind than any others. They belong to beings 118 Mosaics. of the highest order They are the inclinations of heaven, and the entertainments of the Deity." If, as the author of " Friends in Council " suggests, we carry with us our intellectual acquirements, as well as our moral nature, to another world, what an incentive is here given to the diligent cultivation of the intellectual faculty even in the decline of life. Then shall all the consoling pleasures of memory and the resources of wisdom and learning, all the beautiful thoughts and images, like stars, gleam upon us through the blue dis tance. Such pursuits will prove the best antidote to the heart growing old, as well as the intellect. " Yet, oh Time, attend my prayer Though thy cold hand blight my hair, Touch me softly spare, oh spare Life s best beauty love and truth ; Let the withering control Of thy years, as on they roll, Spare the freshness of my soul, Spare the fervor of my youth ! " They are wrong who tell us age Has in tears its heritage That all through its pilgrimage Is the Miserere sung ; He whose heart, though oft it errs, Tuned by Nature s ministers, Beats in unison with hers, Keepeth it forever young !" Literary history is replete with instances of devotion to studies at an advanced age. The fact that the intel lect is frequently retained in its pristine vigor by the Youth and Age. 119 aged is an evidence that the mind, unlike the body, does not pass into decadence. The following incidents show this. They are calculated also to encourage the devotees of lite rature, though in advanced life, still to nurse the fire of genius, and toil at their high vocation. And will not those who in early life have neglected mental improvement, find in many of these facts a sti mulus to attend to it even in their maturity or old age? " In my eightieth year," wrote, nine years ago, faron fmmfolbi, in " The Aspects of Nature," " I am still enabled to enjoy the satisfaction of completing a third edition of my work, remoulding it entirely to meet the requirements of the present time." The Nestor of science is still engaged in completing his " Cosmos." Washington Irving, at the age of seventy- five, is in full mental vigor, completing his " Life of "Washington," and Lord Brougham, aged seventy-eight, is editing Newton s " Principia." If we turn to earlier times, we find Cato, at eighty, studying Greek, and Plutarch, almost as late in life, Latin. Theophrastus began his admirable work on the " Characters of Men," at the extreme age of ninety. Dryden commenced the translation of the " Iliad," in his sixty-eighth year, and his most pleasing productions were written in his old age. Chaucer s " Canterbury Tales " were not com pleted till his sixty-first year. The great Arnauld retained the vigor of his genius, and the command of his pen, to his last day. He translated Josephus excellently when eighty years 120 Mosaics. old, and at the age of eighty-two was still the great Arnauld. Michael Angelo preserved his creative genius even to extreme old age; there is a device said to be invented by him of an old man represented in a go-cart, with an hour-glass upon it; the inscription Aurora, impara! Yet I am learning!" Sir Christopher Wren retired from public life at eighty-six ; and after that he spent five years in literary, astronomical and religious engagements. Worthy old Izaac Walton still glowed while writing some of the most interesting biographies, in his eighty-fifth year. Franklin s philo sophical pursuits began when he had nearly reached his fiftieth year. Dr. Johnson applied himself to the Dutch language but a few years before his death. In one morning of advanced life, he amused himself by committing to memory eight hundred lines of Virgil. At the age of seventy-three, when staggering under an immediate attack of paralysis sufficiently severe to render him speechless he composed a Latin prayer, in order to test his mental faculties. " Those masters of the Grecian lyre, Anacreon, the sweet Sophocles, and the fiery-souled Pindar, felt no frost of intellect, but were transplanted as evergreens in the winter of four score ; at the same advanced period, Wordsworth, in our own times, continued to mingle the music of his lay with the murmur of Rydal s falling water ; and Joanna Baillie, to fold around her the robe of magic power, enjoying until her ninetieth year the friendship of the good, and the fruits of a fair Youth and Age. 121 renown; Montgomery, the religious poet, so long a cherished guest amid the romantic scenery of Sheffield, has just departed at the age of eighty-two ; and Rogers, who gave us in early life, the " Pleasures of Memory," lived to be the most venerable poet in Europe, and probably in the world, was cheered at ninety-three with the love of all who ever came within the sphere of his amiable virtues. "Goethe, unimpaired by a strong excitement of imagination, saw his eighty-second winter ; and the sententious architect of the " Night Thoughts " reached four score and four. Joseph Warton, until his seventy- ninth year, made his mental riches and cheerful piety sources of delight to all around him ; Charles Wesley, on the verge of eighty, called his wife to his dying pillow, and with an inexpressible smile, dictated his last metrical effusion ; and Klopstock, the bard of the " Messiah," continued until the same period to cheer and delight his friends. Watts laid down his conse crated harp at seventy-four ; and Milton, at sixty-six, opened his long-eclipsed eyes on " cloudless light serene," leaving to the world the mournful memories of " Lost "Paradise," with living strains of heroic and sublime counsel." * Grand and ennobling as are the pursuits of literature, there is yet a higher order of study, which, pertaining to a man s immortality, transcends in value all mere human learning. J^almasms, reputed the most learned man of the 17th century, had read not only books, but whole libraries, when he came to die, uttered this * Mrs. Sigourney. 122 Mosaics. bitter exclamation : " Oh, I have lost a world of time ! Had I but one year longer, it should be spent in reading David s Psalms and Paul s Epistles." The Bible is sure of a respectful welcome in the sick room, however stalwart the intellect, or sturdy the gait of healthful days, the closing hour is sure to acknowledge its priceless value. The venerable feint ^.ngcll |famts, in his recent volume on " Christian Hope," wrote : " In the seventy-third year of my life, and the fifty-third of my ministry, I have no need of a special revelation to assure me that I must shortly put off this my tabernacle ; by the course of nature this cannot be far off. The shadows of evening are gathering fast and thick around me, and I find it most consoling on the border country of the world unseen, to go forward into what would be other wise a dark unknown, guided and cheered by a hope full of immortality." " Who that surveys this span of earth we press - This speck of life in Time s great wilderness, This narrow isthmus twixt two boundless seas The past, the future two eternities Would sully the bright spot, or leave it bare, When he might build him a proud temple there, A name that long shall hallow all its space, And be each purer soul s bright resting-place." How poor and abject a creature man would be, were he not immortal! How aimless and futile all his wants, and struggles, and sufferings ; all his joys, and hopes, and aspirations! Deprive us of our claim to Youth and Age. 123 another life, and we sink beneath the worm, in the scale of creation: and this is a claim founded no less upon a promise, than the nature of the soul itself. " Strange as it may sound, how many a man has fol lowed himself to his own grave ! He is no mourner would he were, for then there might be still hope, but he is an assistant at the grave of his own better hopes and holier desires, of all in which the true life of his soul consisted, though he, a sad survivor of himself, still cumbers the world for awhile." * " Men seldom think of the event of death until the shadow falls across their own path, hiding forever from their eyes the traces of the loved one whose living smiles were the sunlight of their existence. Death is the great antagonist of life, and the cold thought of the tomb is the skeleton of all feasts. We do not want to go through the dark valley, although its passages may lead to paradise ; and, with Charles Lamb, we do not want to lie down in the muddy grave, even with kings and princes for our bed-fellows. " But the fiat of nature is inexorable. There is no appeal or relief from the great law which dooms us to the dust. We flourish and we fade as the leaves of the forest, and the flower that blooms and withers in a day has not a frailer hold upon life than the mightiest monarch that shook the earth with his footsteps. Generations appear and vanish as the grass ; the count less multitude that throngs the world to-day, to-morrow disappear as the footstep on the shore." * Trench. 124 Mosaics. " The glories of our birth and state, Are shadows, not substantial things ; There is no armor against fate : Death lays his icy hands on kings : Sceptre and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade. " The garlands wither on your brow, Then boast no more your mighty deeds ; Upon Death s purple altar now, See where the victor victim bleeds : All heads must come To the cold tomb, Only the actions of the just Smell sweet and blossom in the dust."* The amiable and gifted |ane ^aglcr, the last time she took up her pen it was on the day preceding her death wrote as follows : " Oh, my dear friends, if you knew what thoughts I have now, you would see as I do, that the whole busi ness of life is preparing for death." How much time is spent in preparing to live ! How little in preparing to die ! One who had lived more than fifty years, said, as the hand of death was upon him, " I have all my days been getting ready to live, and now I must die." Would men but spend as much time in preparing to die, as they spend in preparing to live, the physical agonies of death would not so frequently be heightened by the agonies of despair. * Shirley, 1646. Youth and Age. 125 " How should we rise above our sins and sorrows and sufferings, if we could live under the power of a world to come. Were faith to take at all times its giant leap beyond a soul-trammelling earth, and remember its brighter destiny. If it could stand on its Pisgah- mount, and look above and beyond the mists and vapors of this land of shadows, and rest on the better country. But, alas ! in spite of ourselves, the wings oftentimes refuse to soar the spirit droops guilty fears depress sin dims and darkens God s provi dences seem to frown God s ways are misinterpreted the Christian belies his name and his destiny. But, at eventide it shall be light ; the material sun, which wades through clouds and a troubled sky, sets often iu a couch of lustrous gold. So when the sun of life is setting, many a ray of light will shoot athwart memory s darkened sky, and many mysterious dealings of the wilderness will then elicit an all is well. " In his delightful sketch of his early life, J$ont|jcg has concluded some remarks on his first conceptions of death with this reflection : " Nature is merciful to us. We learn gradually that we are to die a knowledge which, if it came suddenly upon us in riper age, would be more than the mind could endure. We are gra dually prepared for our departure by seeing the objects of our earliest and deepest affections go before us ; and even if no keener afflictions wean us from this world, and remove our tender est thoughts and dearest hopes to another, mere age brings with it a weariness of life, and death becomes to the old as natural and desirable as sleep to a tired child." 126 Mosaics. But this is not all, we need an unfaltering faith in our Saviour, to fit us to meet the great crisis. It is the true Christian who alone is prepared to die. " The chamber where the good man meets his fate, Is privileged beyond the common walk, Quite on the verge of heaven." True it is that " old age owes a portion of its dignity to the authority it has won from experience, and a still greater degree consists in its proximity to that great future which is soon to resolve the eternal destinies of men ;" yet is old age most sublimed and beautified by the sanctities of Christian faith. It is this closing career of the aged Christian, (iMbsmiijj so beautifully portrays, when he says : " On he moves to meet his latter end, Angels around befriending virtue s friend ; Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay, While resignation gently slopes the way : And all his prospects brightening to the last, His heaven commences ere the world be past." "THE HUMAN FACE DIVINE." " Life hath its legend in every look." 1 THE face is to the man, what the title-page is to the book, or the dial is to the clock an index of the interior. This is equally apparent in the facial varia tions of the lower animals. So self-evident is it, that it is scarcely necessary to cite illustrations of the fact. Who has not observed the physiognomy of animals ? There is an expression in the eye of a mastiff that forbids familiarity, and a vacancy in the optics of an owl which is highly suggestive of judicial wisdom ; there is a good-humored savageness about the lion, which must make it quite a comfort to be killed by the noble animal. Do not say you have not traced the physiognomical resemblance between a bullfrog and an alderman; at any rate, you must have noticed the difference between meek and savage cats ; the lazy eye of the elephant is always a special attraction ; he looks as if he thought his temporary confinement, for the purposes of exhibition, was an immense joke, and that he enjoyed it much, but really he was too indolent and monstrous to laugh. Plenty of instances of animal 128 Mosaics. physiognomy might be cited, but every one can instantly call up sufficient in his own memory to illustrate the subject. " No study," says Daimler, " mathematics excepted, more justly deserves to be termed a science than phy siognomy. It is a source of pure and exalted mental gra tification. We all have some sort of intuitive method by which we form our opinions ; and though our rules for judging of men from their appearance may often fail, we still continue to trust in them ; and naturally feel surprised if a vacant-looking man should prove ex tremely sagacious, or a morose-looking one should give us evidence of his kind disposition by performing some generous and disinterested action. There is an almost universal standard of correspondencies between the external forms and the interior souls of men. Yet it is admitted, that the criteria by which we judge are, to some extent, liable to error, being controlled by the ever-varying circumstances and differences of the habits and idiosyncrasies of men." " Ye who know the reason, tell us How it is that instinct still Prompts the heart to like or like not At its own capricious will ! Tell me by what hidden magic Our impressions first are led Into liking or disliking Oft before a word be said ! Why should smiles sometimes repel us? Bright eyes turn our feelings cold ! What is that which comes to tell us All that glitters is not gold ? "The Human Face Divine." 129 Oh no feature plain or striking, But a power we cannot shun, Prompts our liking or disliking, Ere acquaintance hath begun." A thousand forms of intuitional affinity are seen in nature ; nor are they peculiar to mankind, for the domestic animals readily choose their human favorites in obedience to the same law. The great advocates of physiognomy and phrenology, Gall, Spurzheim, Lavater and Combe have either mapped off the human skull into square inches of distinct traits, propensities or pas sions ; or have partitioned off th e " human face divine." " We are no sooner presented to one wejiever saw before, but we are immediately struck with the idea of a proud, a reserved, an affable, or a good-natured man ; and upon our first going into the company of strangers, our benevolence or aversion, awe or contempt, rises naturally towards several particular persons before we have heard them speak a single word, or so much as know who they are. 1 * Cofcrptr confessed he was very much of Lavater s opinion, " that faces are as legible as books, only with these circumstances to recommend them to our perusal, that they are read in much less time, and are much less likely to deceive us. Southey asserts that his skill in physiognomy had never deceived him. Bacon, Haller, Sir Thomas Browne, and many other celebrated writers, have expressed their faith in these correspondences of the outward form to the inner soul, and their delight in interpreting them. * Addison. 130 Mosaics. " The body and the mind, the sign and the thing signified, do not correspond as effect to cause, but as things derived from a common origin, and planned with one design. They are in no relation of sequence, either to the other ; nor is their correspondence the result of mutual sympathy ; but one Divine mind hav ing made them both, according to one idea, there is perfect congruity between them ; the body is the image of the mind, and, in the visible, the invisible is revealed." " Without going so far as the Frenchman who main tained that speech Was given to us to conceal our thoughts, it is certain that we may, even now, convey them pretty accurately without the interven tion of the tongue. To a certain extent, everybody talks with his own countenance, and puts faith in the indications of those which he encounters. The basis of physiognomy that the face is the silent, yet eloquent echo of the heart, is substantially true ; and to confine ourselves to one feature the eye I would ask what language, what oratory can be more valuable and instinct with meaning than the telegraphic glances of the eye ? I have always had a firm belief that the celestials have no other medium of conversation, but that carrying on a colloquy of glances, they avoid all the wear and tear of lungs, and all the vulgarity of human vociferation. Nay, we frequently do this our selves. By a silent interchange of looks, when listening to a third party, how completely may .two people keep up a by-play of conversation, and express their mutual incredulity, anger, disgust, contempt, amazement, grief, " The Human Face Divine." 131 or languor. Speech is a laggard and a sloth, but the eyes shoot out an electric fluid that condenses all the elements of sentiment and passion in one single emana tion. Conceive what a boundless range of feeling is included between the two extremes of the look serene and the smooth brow, and the contracted frown with the glaring eye. What varieties of sentiment in the mere fluctuation of its lustre from the fiery flash of indignation to the twinkle of laughter, the soft beam ing of compassion and the melting radiance of love ! 4 Oculi sunt in amore duces, says Propertius; and certainly he who has never known the tender passion, knows not half the copiousness of the ocular language, for it is in those prophetic mirrors that every lover first traces the reflection of his own attachment, or reads the secret of his rejection, long before it is pro mulgated by the tardy tongue." * " Every spirit as it is most pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, So it the fairer body doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight With cheerful grace and amiable sight ; For of the soul the body form doth take ; The soul is form, and doth the body make." " The meaning of sounds are uncertain, and tied to particular times and places ; but the language of the face is fixed and universal. Its consents and refusals are everywhere alike. A smile has the same form and sense in China as with us. If looks were as arbitrary * Horace Smith. Mosaics. as words, conversation would be more in the dark; and a traveller would be obliged to learn the countenances as well as the tongues of foreign countries. " As the language of the face is universal, so is it very comprehensive. No laconism can reach it. It is the short-hand of the mind, and crowds a great deal in a little room. A man may look a sentence as soon as speak a word. The strokes are small, but so masterly drawn, that you may easily collect the image and proportions of what they resemble." * The earliest authority on this subject we have met with is J)r. <$foiibcr, who nourished in the year 1604, to whom we are indebted for the subjoined curious physi ological definition of Physiognomy : " Soft wax cannot receive more various and numerous impressions than are imprinted on a man s face by objects moving his aifections : and not only the objects themselves have this power, but also the very images or ideas j that is to say, anything that puts the animal spirits into the same motion that the object present did, will have the same effect with the object. To prove the first, let one observe a man s face looking on a pitiful object, then a ridiculous, then a strange, then on a terrible or dangerous object, and so forth. For the second, that ideas have the same effect with the object, dreams confirm too often. " The manner I conceive to be thus : The animal spirits, moving in the sensory by an object, continue their motion to the brain ; whence the motion is pro pagated to this or that particular part of the body, as * Jeremy Collier. " The Human Face Divine." 133 is most suitable to the design of its creation ; having first made an alteration in the face by its nerves, especially by the pathetic and oculorum motorii actu ating its many muscles, as the dial-plate to that stu pendous piece of clock-work, which shows what is to be expected next from the striking part. Not that I think the motion of the spirits in the sensory continued by the impression of the object all the way, as from a finger to the foot : I know it too weak, though the tenseness of the nerves favors it. But I conceive it done in the medulla of the brain, where is the common stock of spirits ; as in an organ, whose pipes being uncovered, the air rushes into them ; but the keys, let go, are stopped again. Now, if by repeated acts, or frequent entertaining of the ideas, of a favorite idea, of a passion or vice which natural temperament has hurried one to, or custom dragged, the face is so often put into that posture which attends such acts, that the animal spirits find such latent passages into its nerves, that it is sometimes unalterably set : as the Indian monks are, by long continuing in strange postures in their pagods. But, most commonly, such a habit is contracted, that it falls insensibly into that posture, when some present object does not obliterate that more natural impression by a new, or dissimulation hide it. " Hence it is that we see great drinkers with eyes generally set towards the nose, the adducent muscles being often employed to let them see their loved liquor in the glass at the time of drinking ; which were, there fore, called Mbitory. From this also we may solve the Quaker s expecting face, waiting the pretended Spirit ; 134: Mosaics. and the melancholy face of the Sectaries the studious face of men of great application of mind ; revengeful and bloody men, like executioners in the act: and though silence, in a sort, may awhile pass for wisdom, yet, sooner or later, Saint Martin peeps through the disguise, to undo all. A changeable face I have observed to shew a changeable mind. But I would by no means have what has been said understood as with out exception ; for I doubt not but sometimes there are found men with great and virtuous souls under very unpromising outsides." Assuming the hypothesis to be true, its moral uses are not to be overlooked. We thus may be able to decide upon a person s character at a glance, without the trouble of cross-examining him as a witness. " In many looks the false heart s history Is writ, in moods, and frowns and wrinkles strange/ * " For original character the stationary features must be consulted the forehead, the nose, and chin ; for acquired, we must peruse the mutable ones the eyes and mouth. Poets have abused the eyes for being notorious traitors : they certainly seem eminently formed for expression, yet I think we are apt to bestow on them too much credit, as we are apt to do to all pretty informers. They are the centre to which the motion of every muscle is referred ; and, after scanning the various parts of the face, we seek in them for the sum. And thus they obtain the reputation of disclosing what in reality was elicited from the several other * Shakspeare. " The Human Face Divine." 135 features. Take an eye by itself, distinct and separate, and what can you read in it ? Unconnected, it is the most insignificant of the features ; from a nose, a chin, a mouth, you can conjecture something, but from an eye alone, leaving the socket out of consideration, not one inference can be drawn. What can painters make of an eye ? Nothing ; yet it is there the expression of the picture is centered. In short, this piece of animal mechanism is naught but a little mirror taken by itself merely bright but owing all its beauty and expression to the objects it reflects. " The lips seem to me the most interesting and intelligent contemplation. There is more diversity in them than in any other feature ; their outline is capa ble of marking all shades from the highest degree of sensibility to the lowest of brutality; and being the most flexible and most agitated, they undergo more changes than any other part of the visage. The nose is not of such consequence by it we are to judge of a passing face of one at a distance ; it consequently expresses the common attribute of character, the only one we have need to perceive. But the mouth pre sents itself to the inspection of intimacy and friendship, and therefore is calculated to mark the nice shades of character and temper, which it imports those to become acquainted with who live much together. The best way to judge of a friend is from his own mouth he can have no objection to the mode. In people of great sensibility, it is the lips that first feel internal agitation ; the fever of anxiety or anger, the pallor of fear or despair, are communicated to them earlier than they 136 Mosaics. are visible in the eyes. People of strong feelings, too, are compelled to acquire dissimulation, and it is over the eye and muscle of the cheek they exert it : the calm face and blank eye contradict emotion, the tremulous lip betrays it. But let us not proceed fur ther in these minutiae,, for fear the reader should sus pect we are but making mouths at him." * " There is a great deal in a face ; all the interest of life depends on face. It is a difficult thing to imagine what we should do without faces ; we have no sympa thy for living things which have not face : there is not one man in a thousand, save and except butchers, who could stick a knife into the throat of a lamb, it has such a pretty, innocent face ; but oysters are slaugh tered remorselessly, wrenched out of their shells with out the slightest compunction : they have no faces, though they have beards ; they shed no tears ; they utter no cry ; they exhibit no mournful countenance and therefore they are not pitied. What a parcel of hypocrisy is all our pity for negroes, all our pretence to humanity, and all our anti-cruelty crotchets it is nothing more than sympathy with face. When Shak- speare talks of the big drops coursing each other down the stag s face, our pity is excited almost to tears ; and if eels had such faces as mermaids, there is not a fish wife in Billingsgate who would dare to skin one ; but these poor vermicular fishes are so much alike at both ends, that nobody pities them. In a word, let us endeavor to look into our mind for the images which constitute our thoughts of our species, and our interest * New Monthly Mag. " The Human Face Divine." 137 in them, and we shall find the tablet of our memory covered with faces. The face is not only the means of compassionate feeling, but the instrument also of wisdom. No man can be thoroughly and utterly stupid, who has much to do with the human face. I mean no oifence to fiddlers ; but I think that I am not the only one who has observed the general intellectual difference between artists and musicians the one addresses, the eye, the other the ear ; but the artist has more to do with the human face ; and he drinks in wisdom from its look ; if a face be ever so silly, some thing is to be learned from it ; and they who are not wise themselves, may be the cause of wisdom in others. Barbers, also, have generally more to say for them selves than shoemakers this is from conversing with the head and face. " Perhaps, of all sights that are seen, there is no one so amusing and interesting as the sight of human faces. The audience is a great part of a play ; the spectators form the splendor of a coronation. He who cannot spare a shilling for a show, may, if he be fond of sight seeing, amuse himself in the public streets very abun dantly with human countenances. He may exercise himself with various and curious conjectures, as to the pursuit, temper, and feelings of the individuals whom he sees passing him. In the streets most people are alone, and tolerably inartificial ; but when two persons suddenly and accidentally meet, it is curious to observe the change which their faces undergo they begin to act immediately ; there is an artificial expression, which puts one in mind of a little book that was very 138 Mosaics. popular rather more than twenty years ago, called Thinks I to Myself. The difference between the human face when conscious of observation and when insensible to it, is very great. It is amusing to see the efforts which some people will make to look wise, especially when there is anything that may be criti cised." * " In perambulating the streets of a great city you have faces of every clime, of every rank, of every class, of every grade of wit, wisdom, and stupidity. Very entertaining it is to see them glide by, like the slides of a magic lantern ; they are interesting to the pro found and to the superficial; for there is in human faces philosophy for the wise and fun for the witty. Gay or grave, there is always something to laugh at in the human face : if gay, there is the laugh of sympathy ; if grave, there is cause to laugh at the solemnity of the visage. Moreover, as in this mutable world there is food for Heraclitus as well as for Democritus, there is something in the sight of the human countenance which may as readily produce a tear in some spectators as a smile in others. Who can look at a face on which Time s furrows have been deepened by adversity with out a feeling of compassion ? For, though there be a show of grief, there is also that within which passeth show. The happy do not carry all their joy in their faces, nor do the sorrowful display all their SOITOAVS there. But not only are the sorrowful to be pitied for what they endure or have endured ; the joyful are also as much to be pitied, by reflecting on what they may * Titan. " The Human Face Divine." 139 have to endure. It will not always be sunshine with them. There may be a youthful gladness in the spirit for a while there may be the tiptoe triumph of hope, and the confidence of joyful anticipation ; but there is waiting for the prosperous some sad reverse; there are evening shadows yet to come, and there may be storms, " That, hushed in grim repose, await their evening prey. " Faces are serious things, be they new or be they old be they young or be they aged. The very old and the very young are alike to us in their feebleness and dependence ; we have a feeling of tenderness for the helpless, and of pity for the infirm, and pity is near akin to love. The sight of a very old face is a vision of the past ; it is a flesh-and-blood ghost, though, per haps, little flesh and blood are left, and seems to say " I could a tale unfold. It is a movable library of romance a conglomeration of catastrophes ; it is the preterpluperfect tense of hu manity ; it is a venerable finis to the chapter of acci dents. Surely, to the man of mind and the mind of man, all nature is redolent of face ; we talk of the face of the earth, the face of the waters, the face of the sky; and we even carry face into politics, and talk about the face of affairs ; so that, in fact, everything seems to be an affair of face ; and so long as we can put a good face on any matter, all goes well." * * Titan. 140 Mosaics. "The face being the outward index of the passions and sentiments within, the immortal dweller fashions and molds the plastic substance of its home, and helps to form and to alter the architecture of its house, like the bees and birds. In return, his mind is not seldom influ enced by the house itself. Between the head of a Shakspeare or a Bacon, and that of a Newgate mur derer, there is as much difference as between a stately palace standing apart and a rotting hovel in a blind alley. The spiritual principle writes its own character on its exterior walls, and chronicles from time to time its upward aspirations or its more complete abasement ; for every one must have observed that, even in com paratively mature life, a face may alter for the better or worse may waver with the wavering mind may report with terrible fidelity the progress of that inner struggle between the good and evil, darkness and the light. Such a face becomes of itself a drama of pro found and pathetic interest too often a tragedy in its ending, though sometimes a triumph ; but in any case a tremendous spectacle ; because, in the visage of our human fellow-creature, we behold the battle-ground of the oldest antagonists in the world a visible incarna tion of the ManichaBan dream the ancient mystery of Evil wrestling openly with Good. The features may also be impressed with the character of surrounding influences, and are too often made sordid and earthy by their owners being compelled to live in the midst of squalid and depressing scenes like the Lady Chris- tabel of Coleridge s beautiful poem, who is obliged involuntarily to imitate the serpent-glance of the witch. " The Human Face Divine." 141 " It is moreover generally admitted that the cultiva tion of particular branches of intellect leads to a dis tinctive character of physiognomy, and that perhaps as a consequence of this all nations have a cast of countenance peculiar to themselves, and not to be mis taken by a thoughtful observer. For instance, the Greeks and the Italians, who in former times were the most artistic people in the world, possess to this day the most ideal heads and faces that are to be met with anywhere ; and cannot we see in the melancholy, medi tative eyes of the poor Hindoos who sweep our Lon don crossings, the essential characteristics of that an cient race from whom all mythology and all mystical philosophy are derived, and who speculated so long and so profoundly on the grey secrets of birth, death and resurrection that they became a petrified mass among the living nations of the earth? In families where an cestral portraits are kept, it will often be found that a particular form of countenance re-appears in different successive generations conjoined with a similar tenden cy of mind or heart. ^Triqlj Ipimi remarks in his Auto biography, that there is a famous historical bit of trans mission called the Austrian lip ; [then there is the pear- shaped face of the Bourbons] ; and faces which we consider to be peculiar to individuals are said to be common in whole districts such as the Boccaccio face in one part of Tuscany, and the Dante face in another. I myself, he adds, i have seen in the Genoese terri tory many a face like that of the Bonapartes. Wil liam Howitt professes to have discovered a schoolboy at Stratford-upon-Avon, named Shakspeare, by his like- 142 Mosaics. ness to the portraits of the poet ; but these transmis sions are less common in England than elsewhere, on account of the mixed population and the continual in flux of fresh foreign blood, which is known to have an influence upon our national physiognomy. " A parity of physical and moral characteristics in different individuals, however, may exist without any relationship. Uplift once remarked that the heads of the more brutalized of the Roman emperors were very like our English prize-fighters ; and a recent writer in the Athenaeum observes that the depraved women of the imperial times, as Faustina, Agrippina, etc., have the hard, round forehead, and small weak chin which became the marked features of the Louis Quinze age, or may be traced in the sleepy-eyed, languid beauties of Lely and of Kneller. " That the face is modified by the passions of its owner, and that the character may, in a great degree, be predicated from its lineaments, has, we know, been universally granted ever since the time of Lavater nay, was even asserted by the ancient Greeks, among whom a physiognomist gave that memorable charac ter of Socrates, which Socrates himself acknowledged to be just." * It may perhaps be laid down as a general rule, that whenever one s observation is mainly, and first of all, attracted towards the lower parts of a face, that face is bad ; and whenever the reverse, that the face is good. The mouth has its legitimate part to play, and is a beau tiful feature when well formed ; but the ethereal princi- * Household Words. " The Human Face Divine." 143 pie, which alone makes the human face divine, holds its chief residence in the forehead and eyes. All other parts should be subsidiary to the ever-informing soul. What mystery pertains to our organs of sense ! They are not only the media of our enjoyment, but also of our acquiring knowledge. By the eye we are enabled to read the Book of Nature and of Grace ; to luxuriate over both in all that gladdens the sense, and rejoices the heart. By the ear, we drink in delicious melodies, and the words of love and cheer. The senses of feeling and smelling, as well as of taste, are no less the ministries of our pleasure, than they are of our necessary well being and comfort. "The senses are the most astonishing parts of nature. What can surpass in mystery the familiar act of vision, in which this little ball of painted humors, as it turns at will, in its socket, now traverses the arch of heaven, and holds converse with the stars, and then gathers in its contemplations to concentrate them upon an insect s wing, or the petal of a flower. The eye in fact creates the blue arch above us, and spreads the colors upon the sky, paints the fields and sets the rainbow in the clouds : there is no arch above, no color in the sky, no rainbow in the clouds they are the magic wonders of the eye itself. And then the ear, what is the power it pos sesses to work the waves of air into music, and fill the world, which else had been silent evermore, with the sweet harmonies of nature and of man. Nor is the touch less marvellous; alive, all over us, and in the seemingly coarse and clumsy fingers ends, possessing a delicacy of perception, a minuteness of observation, 144: Mosaics. an ethereal sensibility, of which the eye itself is incapa ble. So there are the phenomena of life in the human body, so unconsciously produced that we know not of their health, and the complicated action of all this ma chine, all so quiet and_ noiseless as to be unthought of and unsuspected, till some accident disturbs or jars it." * The eyes cc those windows of the soul," deserve a little closer scrutiny ; they have to be looked at not only philosophically and physiognomically, but poeti cally ; for, if poets are to be believed, woman s eyes have much to answer for. " The light that lies In woman s eyes Has been some heart s undoing. " A pair of bright eyes, with a dozen glances, suffice to subdue a man, to enslave him. They dazzle and bewilder him so that the past becomes forgotten." f gibbbon: affirms that " A beautiful eye makes silence eloquent ; a kind eye makes contradiction an assent ; an enraged eye makes beauty deformed. This little mem ber gives life to every other." Many eyes are beautiful from expression alone. Whatever of goodness emanates from the soul, gathers its soft halo in the eyes ; and, if the heart be a lurking place of crime, the eyes tell its evil tales. Some eyes vary wonderfully with the passing emotions of the hour. We have seen the dull, cold eye, grow liquid as the light of morning, and bright as the star of beauty, * Prof. Haddock. t Thackeray. " The Human Face Divine." 145 under the impulse of some holy and tender sentiment. We have noted the eye that seemed the outward emblem of a meek spirit, flash like the fire that leaps from heaven, at the oppression of the weak and help less. And many an eye that told of solitary misan thropy, has held a world of feeling in its orb, when other lips have told him, I intrust those treasures to you. They are my dearest, my most sacred oh ! be tender of them, bear them safely to their journey s end !" The eyes of a child ! how clear they are ! how sin less ! how full of the pure light of innocence ! Is it not a pity that this dark, cloud-colored world should so often make them a mirror for its deformities? Blessed be the maiden that hath a gentle blue eye. Over her the graces hold peculiar sway. If the hand of affection has always ministered to her, and influences both happy and moral hedged her from contact with vice and passion, she is one of the most amiable as well a.5 purest of beings. Great strength of intellect she may not possess, but great wealth of love, which is a better glory than honor can give, or fame procure v r ith that will she fill your dwelling and your heart. Artists love this style of beauty; they paint the Mary-mother, that blessed among women, with blonde hair and eyes of heavenly blue. According to the theory of a writer in the " Quar terly Review," " Dark blue eyes are most common in persons of delicate, refined or effeminate nature ; light blue, and much more grey eyes, in the hardy and active. Greenish eyes have generally the same meaning as the 146 Mosaics. grey. Hazel eyes are the more usual indications of a mind masculine, vigorous, and profound." The hazel eye inspires, at first, a platonic sentiment, which gradually, but surely, expands into love, as securely founded as the rock of Gibraltar. A woman with a hazel eye never elopes from her husband ; never chats scandal, never finds fault, never talks too much nor too little, always is an entertaining, intellectual, agreeable, and lovely creature. Shakspeare had hazel eyes ; Swift s optics were blue ; those of Milton, Scott, and Byron, grey : this color is said to be characteristic of genius. The striking eye is not always beautiful. Fitful, quick, penetrating, it arrests attention, if it win not admiration. Black, or very dark eyes are generally of this description, if their owners are women, and are susceptible of strong emotional feelings then, beware ! " Let others speak of eyes of jet, As inlets to the mind ; Or loudly praise the hazel hue, More lovely and more kind. To me, there s sweetness in a brown, And sometimes softness, too ; A mildness I can ne er forget, About an eye of blue. Tour eyes of black too oft entrance ; Have oft a dangerous fire ; And when on you they cast their glance, Be careful of their ire. Your grey, inconstant, too, are styled, While brown are often seen, When bound by Hymen s gentle bands, To wear a shade of GREEN. " The Human Face Divine." 147 u Then what would be your choice, If choice to you were given ? Like Benedick, I d have her eyes, What color pleaseth Heaven. " The cross-eyed, otherwise called the swivel, or gim let eye, is a kind of anomaly in the world of eyes. It being an exception to all rule, no direct application of it can be made : it is, however, of a very penetrating nature. Cross-eyed persons have been unjustly sus pected of cross-purposes, on the supposition that the obliquity pervades the whole character. There can be no truth in this surmise, since the renowned Edward Irving possessed an oblique eye, and so did White- field. Descartes admired a squint : one story being that a woman with whom he was in love, looked at him obliquely ; while another version, which is adopted by Southey, is, that this partiality arose from his associ ating a squint with the recollection of the eyes of a kind nurse. There is a curious case which took place in Paris, in 1852, deserving of attention, and which may be a lesson to those who are not content with the eyes which heaven has given them. A young woman was about to be married to a man with whom she was deeply in love, he squinting most unmistakably. At that time the operation of strabism was much in vogue, and the thoughtless lover imagined that by its means he would get rid of what he regarded as a blemish in his countenance. Without letting his mistress know his intention, he got the defect entirely removed, and 148 Mosaics. fancied that he would now appear with more increased favor in her eyes. On his next meeting with her, how ever, she uttered a cry of alarm, and in spite of all explanations, refused to receive him. as her husband whom she had loved under quite a different aspect. The marriage was broken off; the separation was for ever, the lady contenting herself with cherishing in her own soul the squinting object of her young affec tions. Hljahsjjetire drew this inference from woman s eyes : " They are the books, the arts, the academies, That show, contain and nourish all the world." Large, lustrous eyes are the crowning grace of womanly beauty. Most historic beauties, from Helen of Troy to Madame de Maintenon, and Mary of Scot land, were thus endowed. The following beautiful lines sum up the whole mat ter for us : " Language is slow. The mastery of wants Doth teach it to the infant, drop by drop, As brooklets gathers Yet there s a lore, Simple and sure, that asks no discipline Of weary years the language of the soul Told through the eye." " Every difference of shape is found in this variform organ, from the majestic round orb of Homer s ox- eyed Juno, to that thin slit from which the vision of a Chinese lazily oozes forth ; but in this, as in other " The -Human Face Divine." 149 instances, the happy medium is nearest to the line of beauty. If there be any deviation, it should be towards the full, rotund eye, which, although it be apt to convey an expression of staring hauteur, is still susceptible of great dignity and beauty ; while the contrary tendency approximates continually towards the mean and the suspicious." * The nature of the eye as a camera obscura, is beau tifully exhibited by taking the eye of a recently killed bullock, and after carefully cutting away or thinning the outward coat of it behind, and going with it to a dark place, and directing the pupil towards any highly illuminated objects, then through the semi-transparent retina left at the back of the eye may be seen a minute but perfect picture of all such objects a picture, therefore, formed on the back of the little apartment or camera obscura, by the agency of the convex cornea and lens in front. Understanding from all this, that when a man is engaged in what is called looking at an object, his mind is in truth only taking cognizance of the picture or impression- made on his retina, and it excites admiration in us to think of the exquisite deli cacy of texture and of sensibility which the retina must possess, that there may be the perfect perception which really occurs of even the separate parts of the minute images there formed. " As a mere piece of mechanism, the world nowhere furnishes such a beautiful and complex piece of machin ery in so small a space. It is an epitome of the whole human system. Almost every tissue of the body is * Horace Smith. 150 Mosaics. hero represented ; muscle, ligament, gland, serous, mucous, and fatty tissues, bone, hair, follicles, nerves, blood-vessels and fluid ; besides it furnishes some won derful examples of divine Providence and Omniscience, of which no other part of the body affords such exact illustration. We have the mechanical power of the pulley, the retina that mirror in the bottom of the eye upon which all external images are depicted, and that astonishing power of adjustment, by w^hich the distinct image is formed upon it, whether it be six inches or six miles off; the colored pigment to absorb the superfluous rays, the sensitive iris that beautiful curtain which raises and lowers, adapting itself to the light which is afforded ; and when we add the cornea, which gives stability and strength to the organ, the vitreous humor with which it is filled: the external defences, the arched brow, crowned with that hairy ridge which prevents substances from rolling into it, and the lashes, which throw them off as they reach it, and the canal, by which the tears are conveyed away, after having performed their intelligent office-work of lubricating the eye ; we shall perceive that all nature s laboratory has been exhausted, to produce this wonder ful organ." * " The author of the "Five Gateways of Knowledge," has some striking observations on the power of vision, which we annex : " The great majority of mankind do not and cannot see one fraction of what they were intended to see. The proverb that " None are so blind as those that will * Dr. Clarke. " The Human Face Divine." 151 not see," is as true of physical, as of moral vision. By neglect and carelessness we have made ourselves unable to discern hundreds of things which are before us to be seen. Carlyle has summed this up in one pregnant sentence : The eye sees what it brings the power to see. How true is this ! The sailor on the look-out can see a ship where the landsman sees nothing : the Esquimaux can distinguish a white fox amidst the white snow ; the American back-woodsman will fire a rifle ball so as to strike a nut out of the mouth of a squirrel without hurting it ; the red Indian boys hold up their hand as a mark to each other, certain that the unerring arrow will be shot between the spreading fingers; the astronomer can see a star in the sky, where to others the blue expanse is unbroken ; the shepherd can distinguish the face of every sheep in his flock ; the mosaic worker can detect distinctions of color where others see none ; and multitudes of addi tional examples might be given of what education does for the eye." Now touching noses. It was Napoleon who said, " Strange as it may ap pear, when I want any good head-work done, I choose a man, provided his education has been suitable, with a long nose. His breathing is bold and free, and his brain, as well as his lungs and heart, cooi and clear. In my observations of men, I have almost invariably found a long nose and a long head go together." Men who are endowed with large noses should always be honest and candid people, for their nose is distinctly visible to 152 Mosaics. their own eyes, and they have nothing to do but to follow it, which of course makes them straightforward persons. These handles to men s faces may be divided int o four classes, thus : Grecian, denoting amiability of dis position, equanimity of temper, imagination, patience in labor, Lnd resignation in tribulation. Homan, impe- riousness, courage, presence of mind, nobleness of heart. Cat or Tiger, cunning, deceit, revenge, obstinacy, and selfishness. Pug, imbecility of mind, and indecision of character. Of these classes there are innumerable grades the Grecian descends to the pug the Roman to aquiline but the cat or tiger is sui generis. The Grecian nose is most conspicuous in quiet scenes of life in the study. The "Roman, in spirit-stirring scenes of life in war. Men of science often, of imagination always, have the Grecian nose. Daring soldiers gen erally have the Roman. Every one knows what a pug is, for it provokes our smile. Yet do not sneer nt a man because he has a pug-nose, you cannot tell wh^t may turn up yourself! Perhaps the most insurmountable objection to tl e pug-nose, is the flippant, distasteful, or contemptuous expression it conveys. To turn up our noses is a col loquialism for disdain ; and even those of the anciei t Romans, inflexible as they appear, could curl then- selves up in the fastidiousness of concealed derisio :i. " Altior homini tantum nasus," says Pliny, " quam no i mores subdolaB irrisioni dicavere :" and Horace tall s of sneers suspended, "naso adunco." It cannot be de nied, that those who have been snubbed by nature, not "The Human Face Divine." 153 unfrequently look as if they were anxious to take their revenge by snubbing others. Noses have been classed into still other varieties, such as the snub-nose, the thin nose, the flat nose, and the nose turned awry; although no noses are strictly straight. We have yet another to describe in our in ventory : it is familiarly known as the bottle-nose, and belongs exclusively to the victim of intemperance, of which it may be considered the concomitant. It is a kind of bulbous plant, or absorbent, concentrating in itself the fiery essences of "potations deep" of the devotee of Bacchus. Its appearance is the physical embodiment of the rosy juice. " How very odd that poets should suppose There is no poetry about a nose, When plain as is man s nose upon his face, A nose-less face would lack poetic grace. Noses have sympathy, a lover knows!" Noses are always touched, when lips are kissing And who would care to kiss, if nose were missing ? Why, what would be the fragrance of a rose And where would be the mortal means of telling Whether a vile or wholesome odor flows Around us^ if we owned no sense of smelling? I know a nose a nose no other knows Neuth starry eyes, o er ruby lips it grows Beauty its form and music in its blows." There is a great deal of character in a nose ; it is an index of the volume to which it is prefixed. The nasal organ of the Greeks and Romans was well developed, as we learn from their epigrams and satires : the same remark applies to the Jews. Mosaics. The facetious author of "Notes on Noses," remarks that " there is more in a nose than most owners of that appendage are generally aware. Besides being an or nament to the face, a breathing apparatus, or a conve nient handle by which to grasp an impudent fellow, it is an important index to its owner s character ; and an accurate observation and careful comparison of an ex tensive collection of noses of persons whose mental characteristics are known, justifies a nasal classification, and a deduction of some points of mental organization therefrom." He thus attempts a classification: "the Aquiline nose, being rather convex, but undulating, as its name imports indicates energy, absence of refine ment, etc. The Grecian, which is straight,, is indica tive of the opposite character refinement and love of art. The Jewish, or hawk-nose, is an index of shrewd ness ; the Snub, or turn-up, is expressive of weakness, disagreeable temper, etc. Plato designates the Roman the Royal nose, from the fact that it has been ever indicative of energy of character. It has re ceived this illustration in numerous historic instances from Cato the censor, to the Earl of Chatham. The other varieties are also susceptible of similar verifica tion." Noses are sometimes subjected to many indignities ; for example, they are snuffed, pulled and occasionally dislocated. It may happen that a nose will not submit to be pulled, but is ever ready for a pinch, and like the war- horse, " it snuffeth the battle afar off." The author of the following lines was indubitably " up to snuff." " The Human Face Divine." 155 " Knows he that never took a pinch, Nosey, the Pleasure thence which flows ? Knows he the titillating joy Which my nose knows ? Oh Nose ! I am as proud of thee As any mountain of its snows ; I gaze on thee, and feel the joy A Roman knows.!" Sfmrtjj has an amusing chapter on the olfactory organ, which he thus concludes : " Lest my readers should begin to think I have led them by the nose quite long enough, and should sus pect that I am making a handle of the subject, I shall conclude at once with a sonnet to my own nose : " Oh nose ! thou rudder in my face s centre, Since I must follow thee until I die Since we are bound together by indenture, The master thou, and the apprentice I : Oh be to your Telemachus a mentor, Though oft invisible, forever nigh ; Guard him from all disgrace and misadventure, From hostile tweak, or Love s blind mastery. So shalt thou quit the city s stench and smoke, For hawthorne lanes, and copses of young oak, Scenting the gales of heaven that have not yet Lost their fresh fragrance since the morning broke, And breath of flowers with rosy May-dews wet, The primrose cowslip blue-bell violet." There are three or four varieties of the mouth. It will not, however, be required that these should be very minutely particularized. A small mouth being 156 Mosaics. justly considered the test of "beauty, it would i,e ungallant to mar its fair proportions by attempting to enlarge it; while the large one, being already an out rage upon the true standard, any extended remarks upon it would be uncharitable. But we have amused ourselves long enough with eyes, nose and mouth, let us now look our subject full in the face, that we may decipher the character. The lines of the countenance constitute its expres sion, which expression is always true, when the mind is in a state of repose, and free from constraint ; there fore, it is by them we are to discover, when in their native position, what are the natural bent and inclina tion of certain properties of the mind. What portrait painter would disavow his belief in physiognomy ; it seems to us the life and soul of his profession, since character, otherwise called expression, is everything to the success of a picture. Phrenologists divide the cranium into two great divisions : the cerebellum, or hinder portion, comprising the organs of sense, common to all animals, and the cerebrum, consisting of the organs of the mind; ;s these organs, therefore, respectively exhibit greater or less development, we discover the indications of tl ; e preponderance of the mental or animal qualities. Thi s physiognomy is in part allied both to phrenology and physiology, as seen in the comparative view of the three great organs of sensation, mental operation, and volition. This last faculty is situated at the back of the head, or cerebellum, Avhile those of sense, being placed in the face, present every facility for physiog- " The Human Face Divine." 157 nomical examination. These faculties, or organs, are, it is well known, five in number, viz., touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. The intellectual parts of the countenance are at once self-evident the forehead, the eye, and the ear. Where these are found amply deve loped, the head will be generally found of a pyriform shape, indicative of a predominance of intellectuality. We find this peculiarity displayed in a striking manner in the head of Daniel Webster. The expansion of the other parts of the head being adapted to animal and vital purposes are less distinctly marked : wherever these, however, are found in excess, there will also be observable a general roundness of the countenance, indicating a preponderating influence of the animal system. But it must be borne in mind, that the face not only presents organs of sense, bt also those of impression, its muscular parts being under the control of the will. Had this been otherwise, we should not have been able to ascertain so accurately the extent of mental action. This, then, appears to be the first and most important rule of physiognomy, that of examining the preponderance of these organs respectively. How commonly do we hear it observed, that a face is beau tiful, though utterly destitute of intellectual expression. The observing faculties, then, appear to depend on the anterior part of the brain, corresponding to the forehead, the comparing on the middle, and the deter mining faculties on the posterior part of the brain. From the peculiar organ of touch, we chiefly derive ideas; from sight, emotions; and from hearing and tasting, desire or aversion. No illustration is required 158 Mosaics. in confirmation of these apparent truths. The two intellectual organs, the eye and ear, resemble each other in being both duplex, and also in being situated separately on each hemisphere of the cranium ; while the nose and mouth, being adapted for more animal purposes, are situated near to each other, and in the centre of the face. So necessary, indeed, is this approximation of smell and taste to animal purposes, that wherever we find the greatest preponderance of these, we invariably discover the increase and nearer approach of these organs ; on the other hand, so far as the eye and ear are organs of impression and not of expression, and as such connected with the brain by peculiar nerves, it is obvious that they are not animal, but purely intellectual. Thus much for general prin ciples. We shall particularize very briefly these organs respectively. And first, touching touch. This sense, as is well known, is diffused over all the human system, but is more intense both at the lips and fingers ends. The lips, therefore, may be said to represent this organ, and the degree of their linear or full development to indicate accordingly the possession of the faculty. The nose and mouth, in a subordinate sense, possess intellectual sympathies and associations. It is a curious fact, that all the parts connected with the lower jaw are acting parts. The under teeth act on the upper, the tongue on the palate, and most generally also the under lip on the upper. Accordingly, where we find the under lip protruded, there is sure to be the active exercise of passion, either of desire or aversion ; in the " The Human Face Divine." 159 former case, it is said to be everted, and in the other inverted; while we invariably find the upper lip expands on receiving pleasurable impressions. Thus we may generally decide, that an equally, yet mode rately prominent development of both is characteristic of a well-balanced mind. Of the nose, that called Roman, possessing large capacity, and more directly constructed to admit odors, to impress the olfactory nerve, is considered usually as a favorable development ; and that which is flat, defective in this. Again : the short, up-turned nose is evidently calculated to receive more rapid impressions, while that of a long, over hanging shape receives them more slowly. Width of the nose is said to denote the greater permanency of its functions, and its height, their intensity. In the total absence of elevation and delicate outline of the nose, as usually observable in the commoner Irish, will be found absence of sentiment, while the contrary is equally true. Sir E. Bulwer Lytton is an instance in point. Of the eye, that which is large, being capable of more powerful impressions, especially of projecting from its orbit, betokens large capability, wirile that of lesser magnitude and more receding, denotes, on the contrary, a deficiency of power. An iris of a dark color, is said to possess more accuracy and to be of a firmer character, while one that is blue, is the reverse. In the former, the rays of light are more concentrated and absorbed, while in the latter, these are rendered more indefinite and soft. The eyelids, like the mouth and nose, are active or passive ; those beneath, rise or fall with sensations of 160 Mosaics. pleasure or pain, while the upper lids receive or exclude impressions at will. Those, therefore, which are widely expanded, exemplify intensity and keenness of inspection, but little sensibility, while the contrary indicate greater sensibility, but less keen perception. This is observable when a person is reflecting; the brow becomes depressed and contracted ; so it is in cases of anger, because the object that excites it is the subject of severe and scrutinizing inspection. On the contrary, an eyebrow greatly elevated denotes absence of thought. Again : the degree of susceptibility of the auditory nerve is in proportion to its thinness and deli cacy of form. Those that project and incline forward, are less calculated to collect sound. An ear that is long between its upper margin and lobe, will be best adapted to receive the niceties of elevation and depres sion of sound, as well as its intensity. One of great breadth will, on the contrary, be best suited to its dif fusion and permanence. It is said also that there is a striking analogy between the conformation of the ear and the organ of the voice. The great length and narrowness of the space between the nose and chin always indicates acuteness and shrillness of voice. This is caused by the palate being elevated, and the ellipsis of the jaws being consequently more narrow ; while in proportion to the expansiveness of the forehead over and between the eyes, containing the frontal sinuses, and the cheek prominences, containing the maxillary cavities, is the resonance, or echo, imparted to the voice. The elevation of these is supposed also to denote force and activity of character. " The Human Face Divine." 161 Lastly, of the chin and teeth : these, however, form ing an important instrument in the voice, may evidently be taken as representatives of those parts with which they are associated. It is remarkable that the projec tion of the occiput, on which depends the exercise of passion, corresponds with the teeth, and particularly the lips, so that the prominency of the posterior parts of the brain may generally be safely predicted by that part of the face. A similar coincidence subsists between the cerebellum and the jaws ; the breadth of the former is said to correspond with the breadth of the face over the cheek-bones, while its length answers to that of the lower jaw, measured from the tip of the chin to the angle. Such is a brief outline of the leading principles of this very interesting science. The science of anthro pology, or anatomical development, has a collateral bearing upon our subject. This theory is that of adapting the rules of physiognomical science to the developments of the entire human system, which is seen by the relative proportions of the bones, muscles, etc. Thus, for an instance of preeminent physical strength, we may refer to the muscular developments, as de picted in the statues of Hercules and the gladiator, as constituting the beauty, and expressive of the power, of the locomotive system. Again, as in the ancient Saxons, where the body is found to be disproportion- ably large, and the limbs slender and small, an excess of the vascular system is portrayed. While again, as in the busts of Homer, and most specimens of Grecian sculpture, where the head is large, and the countenance 162 Mosaics. expressive and indicative of thought, the beauty and power of the mental system is consequently denoted. In fine, a large head with a small triangular fore head denotes absence of intellect. A gently arched and prominent forehead indicates, on the contrary, great genius. Shakspeare is a striking evidence of this. A forehead full of irregular protuberances is charac teristic of an uneven and choleric temper. Deep per pendicular lines between the eyebrows generally bespeak strength of mind, but when counterbalanced by others in an opposite direction, the reverse. Small eye brows generally betoken a phlegmatic temperament, and if strongly marked and horizontal, vigor of character ; but if very elevated, absence of intellect. Black eyes portend energy, while grey often mark a choleric dis position, and blue, mildness and vivacity. The Roman nose, as already stated, is especially characteristic of valor and strength, like the beak of the eagle: the possessors of this kind of nose seem in many instances to have exhibited in their characters the peculiar pro perties of this king of birds. Such was Cyrus, it is said; Artaxerxes, Mahomet, the Prince of Conde, Duke of Wellington, and General Jackson, all possessed the eaccle or Roman nose. Thus we see that the diversified and often conflicting passions and emotions of the human mind are in a pre eminent manner susceptible of spontaneous expression, or that indicated by the features of the countenance ; and so intimate is their correspondence and affinity, that speech, however honest, can hardly be said to be more faithful in its testimony. The practical uses of " The Human Face Divine." 163 this science are twofold ; first, in aiding us in forming a just estimate of character : and secondly, in the matter of education ; for since it is its peculiar province to demonstrate the possession of constitutional power, as well as its defects, it is manifest that it may be rendered available, by directing us to suitable care in the culti vation of faculties not adequately developed. Let no one, therefore, suffer himself to become exasperated with his ugly looks, but seek to acquire, by mental cul tivation, beauties more ornate, conspicuous, and imper ishable. It has been well said that no face can be called ugly, if lit up with a smile of good temper. |eremg Collier quaintly remarks : " Smiles are much more becoming than frowns : if, therefore, people have a mind to be handsome, they must not be peevish and untoward." He continues : " What can be more significant than the sudden flushing and confusion of a blush, than the sparklings of rage, and the lightnings of a smile ? The soul is, as it were, visible upon these occasions ; the passions ebb and flow in the cheeks, and are much bet ter distinguished in their progress than the change of air in a weather-glass. A face well furnished out by nature, and a little disciplined, has a great deal of rhetoric in it. A graceful presence bespeaks accept ance, gives a force to language, and helps to convince by look and posture. The countenance seems designed not only for ornament but for information. The pas sions there displayed make way for commerce and communication, and help to let one man into the senti ments and affections of another. Here joy and grief, 164: Mosaics. resolution and fear, modesty and conceit, inclination, indifference, and disgust are made legible. The cha racter is fairest and best marked in children, and those who are unpractised in the little hypocrisies of conver sation ; for when nature has learned to put on art and disguise, the forehead is not easily read." It cannot be denied that some, like Talleyrand, have the faculty of disguising their sentiments with consum mate skill: while " Boobies have looked as wise and bright As Plato, or the Stagyrite And many a sage, and learned skull, Has peeped through windows dark and dull." When Garrick was in Paris, Preville, the celebrated French actor, invited him to his villa, and being in a gay humor, he proposed to go in one of the hired coaches that regularly plied between Paris and Ver sailles, on which road Preville s villa was situated. When they got in, Garrick ordered the coachman to drive on ; but the driver answered that he would as soon as he got his complement of four passengers. A caprice immediately seized Garrick. He deter mined to give his brother player a specimen of his art. While the coachman was attentively looking out for passengers, Garrick slipped out at the door, went round the coach, and by his wonderful command of countenance, palmed himself upon the coachman as a stranger. This he did twice, and was admitted into the coach each time as a fresh passenger, to the aston ishment and admiration of Preville. Garrick whipped "The Human Face Divine." 165 out a third time, and addressed himself to the coach man, who said in a surly tone, that " he had got his complement ;" he would have driven off without him had not Preville called out that as the stranger appeared to be a very little man, they would accommo date the gentleman and make room for him. Is not then the face an index of character ? What are more common than exclamations like the following, on first seeing an individual : " What an honest-looking face he has!" "How forbidding an expression this one has !" "How the rogue is depicted in the other !" etc. Have we not our likings and our aversions ? Do we not involuntarily shrink from one person whose face does not comport with our ideas of honesty, and rush with open arms to another, whose countenance more nearly approaches our imaginary standard ? This proves that we are all physiognomists. Then there are equally broad national characteristics, distinctions which have even become a proverb among us. We say, for instance, of the Englishman, from his habitually grave deportment, that he is never happy but when he is miserable : of the Irishman, also, from his strongly- marked and well-known belligerent qualities, that he is never quiet but when he is kicking up a row : of the Scotchman, from his enterprising activity, that he is never at home but when he is abroad. These are not antithetical jokes, but palpable and admitted facts. There are also similar traits observable among other nations. The French, for example, from their vivacious- ness, are said never to be at rest but when they are dancing : while we say of the phlegmatic sons of Yar- 166 Mosaics. many, from their seeming obtuseness and indolence, that they can never see anything clearly but when they are enveloped in clouds of smoke. And there can be no doubt that other inhabitants of the civilized and uncivilized world exhibit in their frontispieces equally distinctive characteristic attributes. And who could not detect at a glance, by his " cute " features, the pur veyor of wooden nutmegs ? Does not all this speak conclusively for the truth of physiognomy ? Again, the professions and trades have also a decided influence in determining the character of the countenance, so that even where nature has originally impressed the features with a marked dissimilarity, they nevertheless acquire, from this cause, a peculiar resemblance in expression. This is owing, of course, to the particular pursuit calling into exercise a corresponding condition of the mind, and which, being habitual, exerts a direct and power ful influence over the features. The well-known and admirably drawn portrait by Boz, of " Squeers," the Yorkshire schoolmaster, is a case in point. What a mysterious compound does he represent! exhibiting the broad grin of Jesuitical politeness, coupled with the ill-disguised, because too legible lines, which none can mistake as indicative of tyrannical severity. These opposite emotions, so constantly alternating in his face, cause his features finally to assume the permanent expression already described. We find likewise in. the physician the twofold expression of profound and inscrutable sagacity, united with that blandness and affability of deportment so essential to the disciple of " The Human Face Divine." 167 Esculapius. "Who can fail to discover in the lawyer, the characteristics of a stern cold-heartedness and cunning, which may be supposed to stop at nothing, where the interest of his client, and consequently his own, is concerned, provided only he is certain of legal indemnity ? In him, too, we find the manifest expres sion of supercilious courtesy and specious affability, even when he is deeply engaged in threading out the mazy sinuosities of his occult and never-to-be-by-com- mon-people-understood profession. Again, in the cler gyman : how can we fail to observe in some instances more than others the curious compound of an ill- disguised love of worldly enjoyments, united with an appearance of great sanctimoniousness, and a portion of the asceticism of the cloister, as well as contempt of all sublunary good ? Should it be objected here that these sketches are not average portraits, it must be remembered that those selected have been preferred for their points of illustration simply, without the design of disparaging any class, by an attempt at caricature. But we should not omit, in enumerating the evi dences of the validity of our theory, that we possess, in addition to this mass of incontestable demonstration, the records in its favor which are of divine origin : " The countenance of the wise," saith Hclcnum, " showeth wisdom ; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth." And in Ecclesiastes we read; 4i A man may be known by his look, and one that hath understanding by his countenance, when thou meetest him." 168 Mosaics. Although only collateral to our subject, we close our chapter with the following rather fanciful conjecture of character by the several habits of walking : " Observing persons move slow, their heads move alternately from side to side, while they occasionally stop and turn round. Careful persons lift their feet high, and place them down flat and firm. Sometimes they stoop down, pick up some little obstruction and place it quietly by the side of the way. Calculating persons generally walk with their hands in their pock ets and their heads slightly inclined. Modest persons generally step softly, for fear of being observed. Timid persons often step off from a sidewalk, on meeting another, and always go around a stone instead of stepping over it. Careless persons are forever stub bing their toes. Lazy persons scrape about loosely, with their heels, and are first on one side of the walk, and then on the other. Very strong-minded persons have their toes directly in front of them, and have a kind of a stamp movement. Unstable persons walk fast and slow by turns. Venturous persons try all roads, frequently climb the fences instead of going through the gate, and never let down a bar. Cross persons are apt to hit their knees together. Good natured persons snap their thumb and finger every few steps. Fun-loving persons have a kind of a jig move ment." THE WITCHERY OF WIT. "JRide si sapis." MARTIAL. I am persuaded that every time a man smiles but much more so when he laughs it adds something to this fragment of life. STERNE. 44 T AUGH and grow fat," wrote fjenrg <&; "if - you should grow exorbitantly fat by laughing, laughing still will keep you in healthy motion. It is a most admirable system of stationary gymnastics. Hu mor puzzles logic ; who can give a reason for the folly that is in him ? But could logic be applied to humor, and dare I describe the syllogism that would suit it, here is my description : its major should be good tem per, its minor a good fancy, its middle term a good heart, and its conclusion a good laugh. Who can de fine humor ? who can dissect it by analysis, or square it by the rules of logic ? Who can methodize the va garies of the mirthful brain? Who can make mathe matics out of merriment ? Who can postulate a pun ? Who can square the circle of a joke ? The calculus of cachinnation would be a pleasant kind of ciphering. Ratiocination is too hard and dry a process to have any association with a thing so glowing and so mellow as humor, which is, as Corporal Trim would say, the radical heart and moisture of the human mind. We 169 _ 170 Mosaics. have heard of Rabelais laughing in his easy-chair; but who ever heard of Aristotle laughing in any chair, or Thomas Aquinas, or Emanuel Kant ? Their very names suggest a nightmare of abstracts, concretes, syllogisms, enthymems, and categorical imperatives. Conceive, if you can, the recovery of appetite by exer cise in polemics, and the improvement of complexion by a regimen of metaphysics ; suppose a man s getting rosy on statistics, and plump on political economy." " It is a good thing to laugh, at any rate, and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happi ness." * " O, glorious laughter ! thou man-loving spirit, that for a time dost take the burden from the weary back that dost lay salve to the weary feet, bruised and cut by flints and shards that takest blood-baking melan choly by the nose, and makest it grin despite itself that all the sorrows of the past, the doubts of the future, confoundest in the joy of the present that makest man truly philosophic conqueror of himself and care. What was talked of as the golden chain of Jove, was nothing but a succession of laughs, a chro matic scale of merriment, reaching from earth to Olym pus." f Some seem to think it a sin to smile; as if they found their pleasure in being always melancholy. They have no music in their souls, and therefore they indulge their dolorous croakings. They are such servile drudges to toil and fanaticism that they will not allow us to play upon words. The writers of classic times as well as * Dryden. t Douglas Jerrold. The Witchery of Wit. 171 those of the Augustan age of our literature, were emi nent wits. Dry den s dramatic works sparkle with many a good joke ; and the same may be said of most of his contemporaries. But Swift was the magnus Apollo of the tribe of punsters whose mind was an ever spring ing fountain of fun. " Laughter is the language of infancy ; the eloquence of childhood ; and the power to laugh, is the power to be happy. It is becoming to all ages and conditions, and with the very few exceptions sacred to sorrow; an honest, hearty laugh, is always agreeable, and in order. It is an index of character, and betrays sooner than words." How much of character lies in a laugh ! It is, in fact, the cipher key, oftentimes, wherewith we decipher a man. As a late writer observes: " You know no man until you have heard him laugh till you know how and when he will laugh. There are occasions there are humors when a man with whom we have been long familiar will quite startle us by breaking out into a laugh, which comes manifestly right from the heart, and yet which we had never heard before. And so, in many a heart a sweet angel slumbers unseen, until some happy moment awakens it. " Laughing keeps off sickness, and has conquered as many diseases as ever pills have, and at much less ex pense ; it makes flesh and keeps it in its place ; it drives away weariness, and brings a dream of sweetness to the sleeper. It never is covetous ; it accompanies charity, and is the handmaid of honesty ; it disarms revenge ; humbles pride, and is the talisman of contentment. Mosaics. Some have called it a weakness, a folly ; a substitute for thought ; but really, it strengthens wit, and adorns wisdom ; invigorates the mind, gives language ease, and expression elegance. It holds the mirror up to beauty; it strengthens modesty, and makes virtue hea venly ; it is the light of life ; without it, we should be but animated ghosts. It challenges fear ; hides sorrow ; weakens despair, and carries half of poverty s bundles ; it costs nothing ; comes at the call, and leaves a bright spot behind ; it is the only index of gladness, and the only beauty that time cannot efface. It never grows old; it is the same at the cradle and at the grave. Without it, love would be no passion, and fruition would have no joy ; it is the first, and last sunshine that visits the heart ; it was the warm welcome of Eden s lovers, and was the only truth that sin left them, to begin life with, outside the garden of Para dise." Wit, according to its modern acceptation, is decid edly difficult of definition, as may be seen by the varied attempts which have been made to analyze its properties. Nor is the difficulty lessened by the fact of its protean and ever-changing phases : every age, rs well as every country having its own peculiar idiomatic humor and styles of wit, as its habits of thought and rules of fashion. There are, yet, certain fixed views of wit, not so susceptible of mutation as its convention:;! forms of expression. It is scarcely necessary to remin I the reader that the term wit is an abbreviation of the old Saxon word wytan, and was equivalent in the times of Shakspeare and Addison to wisdom, and when per- The Witchery of Wit. 1T3 sonified indicated a person of exalted intellect. Thus, Dryden s couplet, " Great wits to madness surely are allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide," is almost an exemplification of that "fine frenzy" which Shakspeare has delineated, and wit in this sense is merely a synonym of imagination. Locke, who was a contemporary of Dryden, defines w it as lying most in the assemblage of ideas, and put ting those together with quickness and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity, thereby to n ake up pleasant pictures and agreeable visions in the flncy. This definition of wit he places in opposition to judgment, which he says "lies quite on the other side," in carefully separating one idea from another, wherein c:in be found the least difference, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude and by affinity, to take one tiling for another, gtbfrtson quotes this passage in the " Spectator," and says: "This is, I think, the best and most philosophical account of wit I ever met with. I shall only add to it, by way of explanation, that every resemblance of ideas is not what we call wit, unless it be .such an one as gives delight and surprise to the reader. These two last properties seem essential to wit, more particularly the last of them." To come down still later, Dugald Stewart indorses Locke with this addition, that wit implies a power of calling up at pleasure the ideas which it combines ; and Lord Kames denominates wit a quality of certain thoughts and expressions, and adds : " The term is never applied Mosaics. to an action or passion, or indeed to an external object." " From hence we deduce that wit, to speak figura tively, is an arrow of sentiment thrown from the quiver of thought. Its triumphs are compared to the inroads of the Parthians, splendid but transient : a victory awakening surprise and indebted to the rapidity of the evolution. It resembles the flash of the lightning, rather than imitates the beams of the sun. " Wit flourishes most in an ample vernacular. It is the companion of exuberant prose and poetry. In some respects it strongly resembles eloquence; and may at times be oratory itself. Webster says, that eloquence must burst forth like volcanic fires with a spontaneous force. The same may be said of wit. Eloquence may be aptly compared to the elaborate pyro technic display which enables the beholder to contem plate for a period the beauties of the brilliant scene. Wit more resembles the sky-rocket, dashing upwards in the regions of fancy ; and pleasing by its rapid and glittering flight." " Wit is the lightning of the mind, reason the sun shine, and reflection the moonlight ; for, as the bright orb of the night owes its lustre to the sun, so does reflection owe its existence to reason." Jlr. P^nniher was once asked by Lord Chatham to define wit. He replied : " My lord, wit is like what a pension would be, given by your lordship a good thing well applied." There are many types of false wit ; these include vulgar jests, personalities, ribaldry, and scoffing against religion ; and it is well they carry their The Witchery of Wit. 175 own condemnation with them. "Wit," said f)onte, "should excite an appetite, not provoke disgust. Wit, without wisdom, is salt without meat ; and that is but a comfortless dish to set a hungry man down to. Wit, employed to disguise or prejudice truth, is salt thrown into a man s eyes." " When wit is combined with sense and information ; when it is softened by benevolence, and restrained by strong principle; when it is in the hands of a man who can use it and despise it, who can be witty, and something much better than witty ; who loves honor, justice, decency, good-nature, morality, and religion, ten thousand times better than wit ; wit is then a beau tiful and delightful part of our nature. There is no more interesting spectacle than to see the effects of wit upon the different characters of men ; than to observe it expanding caution, relaxing dignity, unfreezing cold ness, teaching age, and care, and pain, to smile, extort ing reluctant gleams of pleasure from melancholy, and charming even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe how it penetrates through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradually bringing men nearer together, and, like the combined force of wine and oil, giving every man a glad heart and a shining counte nance. Genuine and innocent wit like this, is surely the flavor of the mind! Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food ; but God has given us wit, and flavor, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of man s pilgrimage." * * Sidney Smith. 176 Mosaics. The same humoristic divine also remarks : " A grave man cannot conceive what is the use of wit in society ; a person who takes a strong common- sense view of the subject, is for pushing out by the head and shoulders an ingenious theorist, who catches at the slightest and faintest analogies ; and another man, who scents the ridiculous from afar, will hold no commerce with him who tests exquisitely the fine feeling of the heart, and is alive to nothing else; whereas talent is talent, and mind is mind, in all its branches ! Wit gives to life one of its best flavors, common sense leads to immediate action, and gives society its daily motion ; large and comprehensive views, its annual rotation ; ridicule chastises folly and impudence, and keeps men in their proper sphere ; subtlety seizes hold of the fine threads of truth ; analogy darts away in the most sublime discoveries; feeling paints all the exquisite passions of man s soul, and rewards him by a thousand inward visitations for the sorrows that come from without. God made it all! It is all good ! We must despise no sort of talent ; they all have their separate duties and uses ; all, the happiness of man for their object; they all improve, exalt, and gladden life !" " A wit is a priceless man for a community ; not a scandal-monger, a detractor, a cynic, whose own hap piness in life being spoiled, is bent upon making others miserable ; but a genial benevolent reformer, a whole some and winning, though caustic surveyor of events. People breathe more freely when they know there is such a man in the ascendant ; for wicked men will be The Witchery of Wit. 177 afraid of him, weak men will strive to be stronger, and quacks will not have it all their own way. Society is continually in need of the exploits of that knight- errant, the wit. Evils creep in unawares ; some good, but very foolish man perpetrates a good deal of non sense, which is tolerated, and even admired by virtue of his goodness, and fixed as an institution before its inconvenience is fully suspected. Honest sentiments, with errors sticking to them, are gradually heaped up into a monstrous aggregate of prejudice. Some bloated and over-fed truths weigh society down like a huge nightmare, till the wit comes along to tickle the sensorium, and wake us up once more into daylight, with a sensation of free, honest living, or the old moralities of the world, yet dull and commonplace, worn, trite and battered, the effigies nearly off from them. The wit is a general refurbisher, recasting the old coin and presenting it to us again current with the image of to-day." * A recent writer in the " Edinburgh Review," thus refers to this subject : " Paradoxical," he says, " as the statement may at first sight appear to many who have been accustomed to consider wisdom and wit as dwelling apart, we doubt whether there is any one attribute so common to the highest order of mind, whether scientific or imagina tive, as some form or other of this quality. The names of Bacon, Plato, Shakspeare, Pascal, Johnson, Byron, Scott, and many more, will instantly occur to the reader. It is true, that the history of the species * The Century. ITS Mosaics. reveals to us minds so exclusively devoted to the abstrusest branches of science, or so incessantly immersed in them, that if they possess the faculty of wit at all, it is never developed. Aristotle and New ton though some of the few sayings of the former, which tradition has preserved, are not a little racy may be named as examples. But in general, and the whole history of science and literature will show, that this attribute, in one or other of its thousand varieties, has formed an almost perpetual accompaniment of the finest order of minds. And we may add that, a priori, we should expect it to be so. The same activity of suggestion, and aptitude for reflecting resemblances, analogies and differences, which qualify genius for making discoveries in science, or under different modi fications for evoking the creations of imagination, may well be supposed not to desert their possessor, when, for playful purposes, and in moments of relaxation, he exercises himself in the detection of the analogies on which Avit and drollery are founded. Yet clear as this truth seems to be, and strongly as it is corroborated by the history of genius, the opposite opinion has been, we believe, oftener maintained." " True wit is like the brilliant stone, Dug from the Indian mine, Which boasts two different powers in one, To cut as well as shine. " Genius, like that, if polished right, With the same gifts abounds, Appears at once both keen and bright, , And sparkles while it wounds. The Witchery of Wit. 179 " Wit is the philosopher s quality, humor the poet s ; the nature of wit relates to things, humor to persons. Wit utters brilliant truths ; humor, delicate deduc tions from the knowledge of individual character. Rochefoucault is witty, the Vicar of Wakefield, the model of humor." English humor is frank, hearty, and unaffected. Irish light as mercury. It is extravagant. Scotch humor is sly, grave and caustic. Surely the analysis of Pleasantry is possible, and its cultivation practi cable. " Wit implies thought humor, sensibility : the former is an essence, the latter an incarnation. Wit deals with ideas, humor with actions and manners. Wit may be a thing of pure imagination, but humor involves sentiment and character. Humor is of a genial quality, and is closely allied to pity. Gaiety is the play of brotherhood indeed, a species of humor adheres even to our loftiest conceptions; for the ideals of truth and goodness so mock the actual doings of mankind, that, if it were not for the sorrow and humility, as well as the incongruity which the contrast suggests, our emotion would be a feeling of the ludi crous. Life is therefore full of irony." * " Humor originally meant moisture, a signification it metaphorically retains, for it is the very juice of the mind, oozing from the brain, and enriching and fertil izing wherever it falls. Wit exists by antipathy ; hu mor by sympathy. Wit laughs at things ; humor laughs with them. Wit lashes external appearances, or cun- * Henry Giles. 180 Mosaics. ningly exaggerates single foibles into character ; humor glides into the heart of its object, looks lovingly on the infirmities it detects, and represents the whole man. Wit is abrupt, darting, scornful, and tosses its analo gies in your face ; humor is slow and shy, insinuating its fun into your heart. Wit is negative, analytical, destructive ; humor is creative. The couplets of Pope are witty, but Sancho Panza is a humorous creation. Wit, when earnest, has the earnestness of passion, seek ing to destroy; humor has the earnestness of affection, and would lift up what is seemingly low, into our char ity and love. Wit, bright, rapid, and blasting as the lightning, flashes, strikes, and vanishes in an instant ; humor, warm and all-embracing as the sunshine, bathes its objects in a genial and abiding light. Wit implies hatred or contempt of folly and crime, produces its effects by brisk shocks of surprise, uses the whip of scorpions and the branding-iron stabs, stings, pinches, tortures, goads, teases, corrodes, undermines ; humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic, and the true, by whose light it surveys and shapes their opposites. It is a humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence promoting tolerant views of life bridging over the spaces which separate the lofty from the lowly, the great from tl.e humble. Old Dr. Fuller s remark, that a negro is HI e image of God cut in ebony, is humorous; Horace Smith s inversion of it, that the taskmaster is the image of the devil cut in ivory, is witty. Wit can co exist with fierce and malignant passions ; but humor demands good feeling and fellow-feeling feeling not The Witchery of Wit. 181 merely for what is above us, but for what is around and beneath us." * " Humor is the persuasive influence in which child hood and manhood flow together. It is honorable to be called an old boy. Old Fuller said that an ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sadness to serve God with. " The child is father to the man and our days should be bound each to each by natural piety, as Words worth has finely said." " Humor and fun humor and fun ! There s nothing like it under the sun, But if you d have it a perfect thing All of it honey, none of it sting Except, perhaps, an occasional fling At pride, or folly, or some such thing, Hold on the reins, or rather chains, That wisdom throws o er fancy s strains." Laughter, like gaping, is infectious; we catch the impulse by sympathy. Swift, it is said, seldom laughed, yet his love of the ludicrous is sufficiently apparent in his pages. The same remark applies to Hood and Lis- ton, whose faces were anything but mirthful. We have illustrations of serious wit in the Parson Adams of Fielding, Addison s Sir Roger de Coverley, and Pope s Essay on Man. Charles Lamb s wit is sui generis. The wit of the Irish is essentially distinct from that of any other nation. As an incentive to laughter, there is none to come near it ; while for decency and pro priety it is not excelled. The " finest peasantry in the * Whipple. Mosaics. world," as Daniel O Connell dubbed them, to their im mense gratification, have humor for their birthright, and common sense and delicacy are chief ingredients in it. There would be intolerable dullness on the stage only for Irish wit. Remove that element and comedy is gone. The most interesting novels also, are those in which Irish characters predominate. But a great deal of Irish wit is never heard of much of it is expressed in the native Irish tongue alone. The bantering, badi nage, and blarney of Irish peasants, among themselves, in their own language, is as good as a play. Witty repartees fly from them with the brilliancy of lightning. Fun has been styled one of the fine arts a gentle manly accomplishment. Fun and good humor are usu ally concomitants of good nature, and good nature scat ters sunshine all around, lighting up the dark spots, and smoothing the rough places of our too serious and ear nest lifecourse. Some persons seem to think it a sin and shame to smile ; we do not accept their melancholy creed, for we have enough of sadness without our adding to the allotment. A cheerful philosophy, tempered with dis cretion and prudence, cannot but prove healthful and beneficent to our moral as well as our physical system ; but we do not, therefore, advocate an idle habit of in cessant jesting and ridicule with grave realities, which is no less injurious and detrimental. "Jesting is of itself harmless. A light laugh, a merry joke may serve to beguile an idle hour; but how often does the seemingly unmeaning joke convey within its inmost fold a death-dealing engine of agony, that whirls swift through the unthinking throng, and The Witchery of Wit. 183 rankles in the bosom at which it was wantonly and too surely aimed. " If there is a destroyer of good feeling, friendship, affection and love ; if there is one tiling more than another that will change love to hatred, corrode the heart and poison the mind, it is ridicule. We are most easily tempted and led away from right and duty by ridicule ; to avoid the shame we compromise with our consciences, commit the great wrong, and in an hour bowed in the dust with burning bitterness of spirit ; oh ! how deep is our repentance. " The hot breath of the desert simoon is not more deathly than the voice of ridicule. We are afraid of it, we humble ourselves, and crawl in the dust at its command ; we degrade ourselves to avoid it. It arouses the most fiendish passions ; the eye flashes, the bosom heaves tumultuously over the feverish fire that rages within it; the heart beats wildly, and all control is gone. " Use it not ! life is too precious ; love is too heav enly; friendship is too beautifully eloquent with hap piness to be destroyed thus thoughtlessly. Rather let every word, every thought be weighed in the balances of your heart, stripped of every useless adorning and garniture, and then go forth to fall gently, smoothly, like spring-time raindrops, on the ears of your fellow- mortals."* "The Preacher tells us that laughter is mad, and the Proverb of the Wise Man adds a warning that the end of mirth is heaviness. There was a deep moral in * J. H. Elliot. 184: Mosaics. the Athenian law which interdicted a judge of the Are opagus from writing a comedy. The habit of looking at the ludicrous side of life is always hurtful to the moral feelings. The pleasure is faint and vanishing, and leaves behind it an apprehension of disgrace. Raf- faelle and Hogarth, " Comus" and the " Tale of a Tub," are cut asunder by a broad gulf. It is not good to live in jest, since we must die in earnest. " No other element of literature is so susceptible and volatile as wit. It comes in and goes out with the moon ; when most flourishing, it has its boundaries, from which, as Swift said, it may not wander, upon peril of being lost. This geographical chain has bound, with heavier or slighter links, the pleasantry of Lucian, the buffoonery of Rabelais, the pictures of Dryden, and the caricatures of Butler." * Laughter, " holding both his sides," is after all greatly preferable to " Loathed melancholy, Of Cerberus, and blackest midnight born." &mit(r s counsel is "Never give way to melancholy ; % resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach. I once gave a lady two and twenty recipes against melancholy; one was a bright fire ; another, to remember all the pleasant things said to and of her ; another, to keep a box of sugar-plums on the chimney-piece, and a kettle simmer ing on the hob." Let us laugh in fitting time and place, silently or * Willmott. The Witchery of Wit. 135 aloud, each after his nature. Let us enjoy an innocent reaction rather than a guilty one, since reaction there must be. The bow that is always bent, loses its elas ticity, and becomes useless. A woman has no natural grace more bewitching than a sweet laugh. It is like the sound of flutes on the water. It leaps from her heart in a clear, sparkling rill ; and the heart that hears it, feels as if bathed in the cool, exhilarating spring. Have you ever pursued an unseen fugitive through the trees, led on by her fairy laugh ; now here, now there now lost, now found ? A word or two regarding puns and their perpetrators those laughter-provoking media. The greatest minds of the world those most remarkable in life and literature have made puns or enjoyed them. We do not lay any stress on Rabelais, Swift, Lamb, Hood, Moore, who, as everybody knows, punned away pyrotechnically, in right of their brilliant and renowned wit. But what will the reader say to the austere emperor Julian and Cotton Mather; to Aristotle and Jeremy Bentham ; Plato and Lord Chesterfield ? The pun has a respectable genealogy ; it has kept good company, and must be treated with considera tion. " Stewart, in his Essay on the Human Mind, treats the pun slightingly, and says, every one that pleases may be a punster. Goldsmith held something of the same opinion with respect to witticisms and good things, which he said could be elaborated by thinking. No doubt there is some truth in both these positions. Mosaics. Brinsley Sheridan and Tom Moore, who certainly worked hard to bring out their airy brilliancies of wit and metaphor, justify Oliver s notion ; and in the same way Hood and others prove that people can hatch puns at a great rate, by brooding over them. Still, a certain cast of mind, a vivacity and judgment, are requisite in these cases. Nothing can make a dull thinker witty no amount of brain cudgelling ; and it is not from every stick you can get the mercury of a happy punster." A facetious writer, with affected gravity, thus dis cusses this subject : "Do you mean to say that the pun-question is not clearly settled in your minds ? Let me lay down the law upon the subject. Life and language are alike sacred. Homicide and verbicide that is violent treatment of a word with fatal results to its legitimate meaning, which is its life are alike forbidden. Manslaughter, which is the meaning of the one, is the same as man s laughter, which is the end of the other. A pun is, prima facie, an insult to the person you are talking with. It implies utter indifference to, or sublime contempt for his remark, no matter how serious. I speak of total depravity, and one says all that is written on the sub ject is deep raving. I have committed my self-respect by talking with such a person. I should like to commit him, but cannot, because he is a nuisance. Or I speak of geological convulsions, and he asks me what was the cosine of Noah s ark ; also, whether the deluge was not a deal huger than any modern inundation. "A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. The Witchery of Wit. 187 But if a blow were given for such cause, and death, ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggra vated character, return a verdict of justifiable homi cide. Thus, in a case lately decided judicially, Doe presented Roe a subscription paper, and urged the claims of suffering humanity. Roe replied by ask ing, " When charity was like a top ?" It was in evi dence that Doe preserved a dignified silence. Roe then said, " When it begins to hum." Doe then and not till then struck Roe, and his head happening to strike a bound volume of the Monthly Rag-bag and Stolen Miscellany, intense mortification ensued, with a fatal result. The chief laid down his notions of the law to his brother justices, who unanimously replied, jest so. The chief rejoined, that no man should jest so without being punished for it, and charged for the prisoner, who was acquitted, and the pun ordered to be burned by the sheriff. The bound volume was forfeited as a deodand, but not claimed. " People who make puns are like wanton boys that pat coppers on the railroad tracks. They amuse them selves and other children, but their trick may upset a freight-train of conversation for the sake of a battered witticism. " I Avish to refer to two eminent authorities. Now be so good as to listen. The great moralist says : To trine with the vocabulary which is the vehicle of social intercourse, is to tamper with the currency of human intelligence. He who would violate the sanctities of his mother tongue, would invade the recesses of the pater- 188 Mosaics. nal till without remorse, and repeat the banquet of Saturn without an indigestion. " And once more listen to the historian. 4 The Puritans hated puns. The Bishops were notoriously addicted to them. The Lords Temporal carried them to the verge of license. Majesty itself must have its royal quibble. Ye be burly, my Lord of Buiieigh, said Queen Elizabeth, but ye shall make less stir in our realm than my Lord of Leicester. The gravest wisdom and the highest breeding lent their sanction to the practice. Lord Bacon playfully declared himself a descendant of Og, the king of Bashan. Sir Philip Sidney, with his last breath, reproached the soldier who brought him water, for wasting a casque full upon a dying man. The fatal habit became universal. The language was corrupted. The infection spread to the national conscience. Political double-dealings natu rally grew out of verbal double meanings. The teeth of the new dragon were sown by the Cadmus who introduced the alphabet of equivocation. What was levity in the time of the Tudors grew to regicide and revolution in the age of the Stuarts." " Our age," observes an recent essayist,* " has often been pronounced the age of mechanical discovery of great economical and political appliances the age of steam, of free trade, of reform ; but a more appropriate title, it seems to us, would be the Age of Mirth or Comicality. Certain we are, that joking is carried to a height which it never reached at any former epoch. The literature of the day, instead of being merely * N. B. Q uarterly Rev. The Witchery of Wit. 189 enlivening with occasional sprinklings of fun with a refined and delicate humor, which does not spring from words alone, but has intense meaning underneath the grotesque sounds is consecrated to Laughter holding both his sides, to Momus and broad grins. Joking has, in fact, become a trade. The cap and the bells which once, like greatness, were thrust upon a man, because he had a genius for jesting, are now assumed with cold-blooded calculation. Wit, that splendid zig zag of the mind, which defies accurate analysis, though it electrifies all that it touches, is manufactured, like Sheffield hardware, at a fixed tariff." We have comic Histories of Rome and England, comic Blackstones and Letter-writers, and a host of similar facetious pro ductions, not to mention that fountain of inexhaustible wit Punch. So universally has this tendency to ban- dinage and ridicule pervaded society, that life itself has almost been perverted into a joke and jest. This excess is a serious evil, and should be frowned upon, not laughed at. There are certain moods of mind in which a jest is as nauseous as a pill ; but your cold-blooded, hardened wit would crack a joke by the bedside of a sick friend would greet the sunrise from the peak of Mont Blanc with a pun, and tickle your ribs at the foot of the cata ract of Niagara. No reverence has he for high and solemn things no admiration for the noble, or love for the beautiful; high, solemn, noble, and beautiful, are qualities he appreciates only because they can be turned into the broadest burlesque just as the sweetest cider makes the sourest vinegar. The gravest themes of 190 Mosaics. human contemplation he studies only with a view to suggesting comical images and associations, and a remark as gloomy as death, will, in passing through his mind, acquire the motley livery of a harlequin. " Now we are not one of those who would frown at a jest always, and look scowlingly upon every indication of mirth. We are no hater of such delicacies when indulged in sparingly, and cannot consider them as some do, as much out of place on a thoughtful man s lips as on a gravestone or in a ledger. Without a little sprinkling of fun, nonsense, and frivolity, pray, what would become of us in these sad days of suicide, war, shipwrecks, tight money markets, failures, and bank explosions ? Say what you will ol this solemn world and such, alas ! it too often is a little of the sherry must be mixed up with the bitters of life, to help us digest our dinners and sleep o nights ; and a little of the vanitas vanitatum will intermingle grate fully with the sterner alarums of existence. It has been wisely said that our graver faculties and thoughts are much chastened and bettered by a blending and interfusion of the lighter, so that c the sable cloud may ; turn forth her silver lining on the night ; while our lighter thoughts require the graver to substantiate them and keep them from evaporation. There must be some folly, or there could be no wisdom ; some broad grins, or even tears would lose their meaning ; and it will detract none from the music of life, if now and then, in the world s orchestra, the notes of the penny whistle are heard over those of the deep-toned bassoon." * Every good thing may be perverted. The Witchery of Wit. UJiss Ifmiiwit never uttered a truer sentiment, than when, in one of her novels " Francesca Carrara" she said " Too much love of the ridiculous is the dry rot of all that is high and noble in youth." Like a canker, it eats away the finest qualities of their nature, and there is no limit to the sacrifices made to it. * N. B. Quarterly Rev. SINGLE BLESSEDNESS. War and love are strange compeers War sheds Mood, and love sheds tears ; War has spears, and love has darts, War breaks heads, and love breaks hearts." MISS EDGEWORTH remarks that "according to the Asiatics, Cupid s bow is strung with bees, which are apt to sting, sometimes fatally, those who meddle with it. " Cupid is a casuist, A mystic, and a cabalist . Can your lurking thoughts surprise, And interpret your device. He is versed in occult science, In magic and in clairvoyance." * This little mischievous mystic, this mighty enchanter, must have a heavy account to meet, if all that is charged against him is true. J5t. Cgurimt describes him as "the devil s bird-lime to enslave men with: the siren who has beguiled men from St. Anthony to St. * Emerson. 192 Single Blessedness. 193 Kevin." Love, which is his Christian name, has been the eloquent theme of the poet and the proser, too, in all ages ; and notwithstanding the sneers of the monk and the cynic, with Plato at their head, enthusiasts and devotees innumerable, are yet found among the wor shippers at his shrine. Stoics, monks and misanthropes affect to despise the passion as unworthy the dignity of a man ; and even St. Jerome thought that a man could not combine the character of the Christian with that of the husband. The human heart must have mel lowed since the days of the Fathers. The philosophic Colcribge affirms that "love is the completion of our being in another ;" and the poet of Paradise thus de scribes the primal fair "For contemplation he, and valor formed ; For softness she, and sweet attractive grace." thus defines the " tender passion :" " Love may be likened to the sun, under whose influence one plan elaborates nutriment for man and another poison ; and which, while it draws up pestilence from the marsh and jungle, and sets the simoon in motion over the des ert, diffuses light, life and happiness over the healthy and cultivated regions of the earth." " To the one sex has been given in largest measure, strength to the other, beauty ; to the one, aggressive force to the other, winning affections ; to the one, the palm in the empire of thought to the other, the palm in the empire of feeling." * * Osgood. 194 Mosaics. " Woman is not undeveloped man ; But diverse ; could we make her as the man, Sweet love were slain whose dearest bond is this, Not like to thee, but like in difference ; Yet in the long years like must they grow ; The man be more of woman, she of man ; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling throes that throw the world ; The mental breath nor fail in childward care ; More as the double-natured poet each : Till at the last she set herself to man, Like perfect music unto noble words." * " Love ! what are thou, Love ? the ace of he arts, Trumping earth s kings and queens, and all its suits ; A player, masquerading many parts In life s odd carnival ; a boy that shoots From ladies eyes, such mortal woundy darts ; A gardener, pulling hearts -case up by the roots ; The Puck of Passion partly false, part real A marriageable maiden s beau ideal. " " Love," |)etrarclj maintains, " is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good." " Love is like the ocean Ever fresh and strong ; Birth, and life and motion, Speed, and strength and song, With which the world surrounding, It keeps it green and young." * Tennyson. Single Blessedness. 195 Or take another version : " Love reigiieth in cot, in palace and hall, Love beginneth with breath, Ending not e en in death, love, love, Thou art ruler of all !" But let us leave the poets for the present, since to seek a full definition from them will be hopeless, as we gather from one, who turns " state s" evidence on the subject: "Love is something so divine Description would but make it less ; "Tis what we know, but can t define, Tis what we feel, but can t express." %bneg Sfmitjj said, " The imperishable, inexhaustible, unapproachable nature of love is shown in this that all the million of love stories which have been written, have not one whit abated the immortal interest which there is in the rudest and stupidest love story. All the rest of the stupid thing may be the merest twad dle, but you can t help feeling a little interest, when you have taken up the book, as to whether Arabella will relent in favor of Augustus, and whether that wicked creature, man or woman, who is keeping them apart, will not be disposed of somehow." " All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of love, And feed his sacred flame." 196 Mosaics. And, however much science or philosophy takes hold of our reason, as long as love rules in our hearts, we cannot quite banish the poet, or even the teller of love stories from our fireside. " Nothing is to man so dear As woman s love in good manner ; A good woman is man s bliss, Where her love right and steadfast is. There is no solace under heaven^ Of all that a man may * neven." f 3Torb ^utott thus sagaciously sums up a learned dis quisition upon the tender passion : " There is in man s nature a secret inclination and motion towards love of others, which, if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable, as it is seen sometimes in friars. Nuptial love maketh man kind, friendly love perfecteth it, but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it." " Honor to woman ! To her it is given To garnish the earth with the roses of heaven ! All blessed, she linketh the loves in their choir In the veil of the graces her beauty concealing, She tends on each altar that s hallowed to feeling, And keeps ever living the fire." " Woman flings around man the flowers of life, like the circling vines of the forest, which decorate the oak-trunks with their perfumed garlands." Love is as natural to woman as fragrance to a rose. * Know. t Robert of Gloucester, 1400. Single Blessedness. 197 " Sweet thoughts are mirrored in her face, And every motion is a grace." Her strength is in her grace, her weapon is love ; and her power is resistless, when these are combined with modest merit, and dictated by conscious duty. In influence, woman is much -superior to man as affec tion is superior to intellect. Man represents the under standing of the universe, and woman the will ; man the mind, and woman the soul; man the reason, woman the heart. " The Gauls attributed to her additional sense the divine sense. They were* right. Nature has given woman two painful but heavenly gifts, which distinguish them, and often raise them above human nature compassion and enthusiasm. By compassion, they devote themselves ; by enthusiasm, they exalt themselves. What more does heroism require? They have more heart and more imagination than men. Enthusiasm springs from the imagination, and self- sacrifice from the heart. Women are therefore more naturally heroic than men. All nations have in their annals some of those miracles of patriotism, of which woman is the instrument in the hands of God." * Take Cljarlcs Jpitkms ideal : " A woman who speaks low, and does not speak much ; who is patient and gentle, intellectual and industrious ; who loves more than reasons, and does not love blindly; who never scolds, and rarely argues, but adjusts with a smile ; a woman who is the wife we * Lamartine. 198 Mosaics. all dreamed of once in our lives, and who is the mother we still worship in the backward distance of the past. Such a woman as this, does more for human nature, and more for woman s cause, than all the captains, barristers, judges, and members of parliament put together God-given imd God-blessed as such a one is." " Some are so uncharitable as to think all women bad, and others are so credulous, as to believe they are all good. All will grant her corporeal frame more wonderful and more beautiful than man s. And can we think God would put a worse soul into a better body ? When man was created, it is said, 4 God made man ; but when woman, it is said, God builded her ; as if He had then been about a frame of rarer quality and more exact composition. Women are naturally the more modest, and modesty is the seat and dwelling- place of virtue." * " Honored be woman ! she beams on the sight, Graceful and fair as a being of light ; Scatters around her, wherever she strays, Roses of bliss on our thorn-covered ways ; Roses of Paradise, sent from above, To be gathered and twined in a garland of love." f Here we must not omit a loyal passage from (Emerson : " Are there not women who fill vases with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs over and fills the house with perfume ; who inspire us with courtesy ; who unloose our tongues, and we speak ; who anoint * Owen Ff Hharn. t Shakspeare. Single Blessedness. 199 our eyes, and we see? We say things we never thought to have said ; for once, our walls of habitual reserve vanished, and left us at large ; we were child ren playing with children in a wide field of flowers. Steep us, we cried, in these influences for days, for weeks, and we shall be sunny poets, and will write out in many-colored words the romance that you are." Woman is said to be, by nature s great signature, invested by chartered right with the proud possession of that mystic power which not only difiuses light and love all around her, but also is the great moral lever that elevates and refines the social compact. Cowley compares a beautiful woman to a porcupine, that sends an arrow from every part. Many of the poets represent the fair sex as basilisks that destroy with their eyes; and certes, if any reliance is to be placed upon the oft-repeated statement, Cupid s bill of mortality would scarcely be exceeded in numerical extent by that of the grim monster himself. guJbisim remarks : " Women s thoughts are ever turned upon appearing amiable to the other sex ; they talk, and move, and smile, with a design upon us; every feature of their faces, every part of their dress, is filled with snares and allurements. There would be no such animals as prudes or coquettes in the world, were there not such an animal as man." " Women love to think themselves uncomprehended nor often without reason in that foible ; for man, howsoever sagacious, rarely does entirely comprehend woman, howsoever simple. And in this her sex has the advantage over ours. Our hearts are bare to their 200 Mosaics. eyes, even though they can never know what ha^s e been our lives. But we may see every action of the r lives, guarded and circumscribed in conventional forms, while their hearts will have many mysteries to which we can never have the key." * Old Burton: quaintly remarked : "As amber attrac:s a straw, so does beauty admiration, which only lasts while the warmth continues ; but virtue, wisdom, good ness, and real worth, like the loadstone, never lose their power. These are the true graces which, as the poet feigns, are linked and tied hand in hand, because it is by their influence that human hearts are so firmly united to each other." The passion of love, controlled by reason, is one of the greatest blessings to the human race ; without it we should cease to be social beings, our misery would be incalculable. But uncontrolled by reason, love is allied to lunacy; it plays the most fantastic tricks with human character, and becomes a fruitful source of mis chief to moral and social life. The best of men and women have not only sacrificed themselves, but nations, have been embroiled in sanguinary conflict through an illicit love. Had Helen not allowed it to rage without reason, in her breast, Troy had never been sacked. This is its tragic side ; and its comic aspect is no le.ss notable and unaccountable. How shall we account for the following phenomenon ? A student turns out from college with honors on his head, his mind replete with learning, and not a stir in his affections, excepting for his kindred. A damsel * Bulwer. Single Blessedness. 201 passes his track and takes his heart along with her and ten to one that she does not leave her own behind her. How is this phenomenon to be accounted for. A trans cendentalist, walks out from his library, stock full of the deepest metaphysics. He finds on his way a little satin shoe, of the nicest shape, and before he has time to count ten, some bright-eyed creature whom he never saw, takes complete possession of his soul. To what shall we attribute this witchery? A miser of sixty years and several millions sterling, who never did a generous act, sees a blue ribbon neatly fas tened with a common brass pin around the waist of a girl, not worth a sixpence, and before three days, he makes her mistress of all his wealth, and turns out to be a happy, jovial person. Who can give a logical his tory of this proceeding ! A stern warrior, wedded to nothing, but strict discipline for the glory of his coun try, entering a ball-room in a foreign clime, where he meets a Spanish girl of sixteen, who takes away his old, stout, honest heart, with a simple twirl of her fan. Can we get a mathematical demonstration of the manceuver- ing by which this conquest was effected ? " Who hath not felt how .feebly words essay To fix one spark of beauty s heavenly ray? Who doth not feel, until his failing sight Faints into dimness with its own delight, His changing cheek his sinking heart confess The might, the majesty of loveliness."* " Beauty has so many charms," observes Jton.e, " one * Byron. 9* - 202 Mosaics. knows not how to speak against it ; and when it hap pens that a graceful figure is the habitation of a virtu ous soul, when the beauty of the face speaks out the modesty and humility of the mind, and the justness of the proportion raises our thoughts up to the heart and wisdom of the Great Creator, something may be allowed it and something to the embellishments which set it off, and yet, when the whole apology is read, it will be found at last, that Beauty, like Truth, never is so glorious as when it goes the plainest." " Love that has nothing but beauty to keep it in good health, is short-lived," wrote (Erasmus, " and apt to have ague fits. No woman can be beautiful in the true sense of the term, by the force of features merely, any more than she can be witty only by the help of speech. Physical beauty fascinates the eye, moral beauty, the heart : the former is the casket, the latter the gem. " That hallowed sphere, a woman s heart, contains Empires of feelings, and the rich domains Where love, disporting in her sunniest hours, Breathes his sweet incense o er ambrosial flowers. A woman s heart, that gem, divinely set In native gold that peerless amulet ! Which firmly linked to love s electric chain Connects the world of transport and of pain !" Si Jicrre remarks, " every trait of beauty may be referred to some virtue, as innocence, candor, generos ity or modesty;" yet occasionally we find a fascinating face has often proved to be the sole endowment of a cold and stately, yet heartless coquette. Single Blessedness. 203 " What is beauty ? not the show Of graceful form and features : no : These are but flowers ; They have their fleeting hours, To breathe their fragrant sweets ; then go. T is the peerless soul within That far outshines the fairest skin." The ancient Greek did not worship the beautiful statue, but the spirit of beauty it enshrined. Their exquisite creations were the embodiment of ideal ex cellence. This love of art fostered in the Athenian character that high cultivation and aesthetic taste for which they have been ever so distinguished. Hir j^ttijjottg Carlisle said that a taste for the beautiful, evinced goodness and virtue ; and he adds : " Man dwells with felicity on ideal female attributes, and in imagination he discovers beauties and perfections which emulate his youth and solace his age." " If, however, the material and outward expression and beauty of woman were only capable of realizing a local and passing delight, the mission of beauty would be insufficient for its great purpose." Expression is to beauty, what mind is to form one would be imperfect without the other ; it is their prerogative to exert a reciprocal power over each other. It is thus that woman exerts her most commanding influence, while she evinces a deep consciousness of the grace and value of virtue. True beauty is in the mind ; and the expression of the features depends more upon the moral nature than most persons are accustomed to think. 204: Mosaics. There may be cultivated upon every face an enchant ing beauty an expression which will kindle admir i- tion in every one who looks upon it, which will attra :t the heart and win love far more than any mere ph - sical combination any perfection of form and color ing. Usually character is indelibly stamped upon the face what one uniformly thinks and feels, traces itself : n unmistakable lines upon the brow and cheek. But t o attempt to cultivate the expression without the qua i- ties of heart on which alone it depends, would be vei y likely to stamp upon the face a meaningless simper, a hypocritical smile. "A beautiful smile is to the female countenance what the sunbeam is to the landscape. It embellish >s an inferior face, and redeems an ugly one. A disagre 3- able smile distorts the lines of beauty, and is more r 3- pulsive than a frown. There are many kinds of smiles, each having a distinctive character some announce goodness and sweetness, others betray sarcasm, bitter ness, and pride ; some soften the countenance by their languishing tenderness, others brighten it by their bril liant and spiritual vivacity. Gazing and poring before a mirror cannot aid in acquiring beautiful smiles half so well as to turn the gaze inward, to watch that the heart keeps unsullied from the reflection of evil, and is illumined and beautified by all sweet thoughts." $jjurns, the poet, in one of his letters sets forth the following as the true qualifications of a good wife : " The scale of good wifeship I divide into ten parts Good nature, four ; good sense, two ; wit, one ; per- Single Blessedness. 205 sonal charms, viz. : a sweet face, eloquent eyes, line limbs, graceful carriage (I would add a fine waist, too, but that is soon spoilt, you know), all these, one: as for the other qualities belonging to, or attending on a wife, such as fortune, connections, education (I mean education extraordinary), family blood, etc., divide the two remaining degrees among them as you please, only remember, that all these minor proportions must be expressed by fractions, not one of them being entitled to the dignity of an integer." The lover s hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows, are all painted in the eye. " Oh what a depth of witchcraft lies In the small orb !" But it were a vain endeavor to enumerate the col lective charms and graces of woman, or the mystic arts and fascinations by which they lead captive their willing votaries. " Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains, And mighty hearts are held in slender chains ; Fair tresses man s imperial race ensnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair." * If woman is invested with such various and potent attractions such gentle grace and bewitching beauty of form and feature, and such endearing moral attri butes, who can wonder that she should be admired and loved ? The only thing that ought to surprise us is that her love should be so heartily and generously * Pope. 206 Mosaics. bestowed upon many who seem to possess but a partial appreciation of her many excellences. " I profess not to know how women s hearts are wooed and won," said Sfejjmgiott frfring. "To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration." But we are created social beings, and it is a beneficent law of our nature to love one another. Jowglas |errolb thus alludes to this fact : " The human heart has of course its pouting fits ; it determines to live alone ; to flee into desert places ; to have no employment, that is, to love nothing ; but to keep on sullenly beating, beating, beating, until death lays his little finger on the sulky thing, and all is still. It goes away from the world, and straightway, shut from human company, it falls in love with a plant, a stone yea, it dandles cat or dog, and calls the crea ture darling. Yes, it is the beautiful necessity of our nature to love something." "Love is indestructible : Its holy flame forever burneth, From heaven it came, to heaven returneth ; Too oft on earth a troubled guest, At times deceived, at times oppressed, It here is tried and purified, And hath in heaven its perfect rest ; It soweth here with toil and care, But the harvest-time of love is there. Oh ! when a mother meets on high The babe she lost in infancy, Hath she not then, for pains and fears, The day of woe, the anxious night, Single Blessedness. 207 From all her sorrows, all her tears, An over-payment of delight?" * The victims beg pardon, the votaries of Cupid, have been classified, but their varieties are so numerous that we content ourselves with the following two or three : The loving couple are lavish of loving epithets and make public exhibition of their mutual devotion maw kish and sickening to all who are doomed to become spectators of their foolish fondness their theatrical show. The contrary couple are ever seeking occasions for disputation and controversy, at home and abroad. It is the element upon which they feed and felicitate each other. They generally prefer to dispute about trifles, not reflecting that, as the most stupendous objects in nature are but vast collections of particles, so the little charities of life constitute its great sum of happiness. The frigid couple are the reverse of the loving. They are seldom found together, if the gentleman is out the lady is at home, and when both are at home, the former is usually dull and drowsy and the latter sulky and silent. They are enigmas which neither can interpret, human problems which neither can solve. They do not quarrel, for it is not worth their while to put each other out of temper. They are rigid observ ers of formality and etiquette. They live as if their home were the last place on earth in which they looked for happiness. The plausible couple are ever ecstatic and prodigal * Southey. 208 Mosaics. in their laudation of virtue and honor. Exaggeration is their usual style of colloquy, and their opinions are as strongly expressed in denunciation of everything that offends their decisions of judgment. The nice little couple usually are models of the miniature kind, the matrimonial multum in parvo. The spouse has the prettiest little figure conceivable, the neatest little foot, the softest little hand, the bright est little eye, the softest and sweetest voice, and in fine, is the most bewitching of women. She is a con densation of all the domestic virtues a pocket edition of a young man s best companion. Her husband is the counterpart of all being an epitome of manly virtues. We present the following advice to the uninitiated in love affairs, by one who seems to be au fait at the business : " Two or three looks when your swain wants a kiss, Two or three noes when he bids you say yes, Two or three smiles when you utter the no ; Two or three frowns if he offer to go ; Two or three speeches, like ah, go away, Two or three times you must hold him to stay ; Two or three laughs when astray for small chat, Two or three tears though you can t tell for what Two or three letters when vows are begun, Two or three quarrels before you have done ; Two or three meetings to walk here and there, Two or three nights to the concert repair; Two or three dances to make you jocose, Two or three hours in a corner sit close ; Two or three pauses before you are won, Two or three faintings to let him press on, And tfte business of feminine courtship is done !" Single Blessedness. 209 Some of our fair readers may think that the above tactics belong only to the coquette, and we rather incline to the same opinion. Flirtation in either sex is false play with the affections, and is as reprehensible as illicit trading. It has been said that " coquettes when old, like Penelope with her web, pass half the night in undoing the labors of the day." Longfellow s admonitory lines suggest themselves in this connection : " I know a maiden fair to see ; Take care ! She can both false and friendly be ; Beware ! Beware ! Trust her not, She is fooling thee. " She has two eyes, so soft and brown, Take care! She gives a side-glance, and looks down ; Beware ! Beware ! Trust her not, She is fooling thee. " And she has hair of a golden hue ; Take care ! And what she says, it is not true. Beware ! Beware ! Trust her not, She is fooling thee. " She has a bosom as white as snow, Take care ! She knows how much it is best to show, Beware ! Beware ! Trust her not, She is fooling thee. 210 Mosaics. " She gives thee a garland woven fair, Take care ! It is a fool s cap for thee to wear, Beware ! Beware ! Trust her not, She is fooling thee." ^foam s method with coquettes, is the most direct and effective : " Whatsoe er she vowed to-day, Ere a week had fled away She d refuse me ! And shall I her steps pursue Follow still, and fondly woo? No ! excuse me ! " If she love me it were kind Just to teach her her own mind ; Let her lose me ! For no more I ll seek her side Court her favor feed her pride No ! excuse me ! " Let her frown frowns never kill ; Let her shun me if she will Hate abuse me ; Shall I bend neath her annoy ? Bend and make my heart her toy ? No ! excuse me !" If coqueting is exceptionable in the gentler sex, what shall we say of it in the sterner ? And yet this heart- treason is much more prevalent among the latter. They seem to think they have a prerogative to trifle with Single Blessedness. 211 woman s love a jewel of priceless value, with abso lute impunity. How heartless thus to be "Ever wooing, Still a love-lorn heart pursuing ; Noting not the wrong they re doing In the cheek s pale hue All the life with sorrow strewing : Nor wed, nor cease to woo." So incalculable are our obligations to woman, that not to love her must be man s greatest ingratitude. " Let man learn to be grateful to woman for this un doubted achievement of her sex, that it is she she far more than he, and she too often in despite of him who has kept Christendom from lapsing back into bar barism kept mercy and truth from being utterly over borne by those two greedy monsters money and war. Let him be grateful for this, that almost every great soul that has led forward or lifted up the race has been furnished for each nobler deed, and inspired with each patriotic and holy aspiration, by the retiring for titude of some Spartan, or more than Spartan some Christian mother. Moses, the deliverer of his people, drawn out of the Nile by the king s daughter, some one has hinted, is only a symbol of the way that wo man s better instincts always outwit the tyrannical diplomacy of man. Let him cheerfully remember, that though the sinewy sex achieves enterprises on public theatres, it is the nerve and sensibility of the other that arm the mind and inflame the soul in secret. A man discovered America, but a woman equipped the 212 Mosaics. voyage. So everywhere ; man executes the perform ance, but woman trains the man. Every effectual per son, leaving his mark on the world is but another Columbus, for whose furnishing some Isabella, in the form of his mother, lays down her jewelry, her vanities, her comfort. " Above all, let not man practise on woman the per petual and shameful falsehood of pretending admira tion and acting contempt. Let him not exhaust his kindness in adorning her person, and ask in return the humiliation of her soul. Let him not assent to her every high opinion, as if she were not strong enough to maintain it against opposition ; nor yet manufacture opinion for her, and force it on her lips by dictation. Let him not crucify her emotions, nor ridicule her frailty, nor crush her individuality, nor insult her de pendence. Let him multiply her social advantages, enhance her dignity, minister to her intelligence, and by manly gentleness, be the champion of her genius, the friend of her fortunes, and the equal if he can, of her heart." * " I have seldom met with an old bachelor," writes Sfebhtgtoit Irfrmg, " who had not at some time or other, some little trait of romance in his life, to which he looks back with fondness, and about which he is apt to grow garrulous occasionally. He recollects himself as he was at the time, young and gamesome ; and forgets that his hearers have no other idea of the hero of the tale, but such as he may appear at the time of telling it peradventure, a withered, whimsical, spindle-shanked * F. D. Huntington. Single Blessedness. 213 old gentleman. "With married men, it is true, this is not so frequently the case ; their amorous romance is apt to decline after marriage ; why, I cannot for the life of me imagine ; but with a bachelor, though it may slumber, it never dies. It is always liable to break out again in transient flashes, and never so much as on a spring morning in the country, or on a winter evening when seated in his solitary chamber, stirring up the fire and talking of matrimony." The law of chemical affinities governs the great human family. We are the conscious subjects of pre dilections and antipathies, and there is such a thing as love at first sight. A well-known illustration of this is the following : " In the bloom of his youth, and when Milton pur sued his studies at Cambridge, he was extremely beau tiful. Wandering one day during the summer, far beyond the precincts of the university, into the coun try, he became so heated and fatigued, that, reclining himself at the foot of a tree to rest, he shortly after fell asleep. Before he awoke, two ladies who were foreigners, passed by in a carriage. Agreeably asto nished at the loveliness of his appearance, they alighted, and having admired him (as they thought unperceived) for some time, the youngest, who was very handsome, drew a pencil from her pocket, and having written some lines upon a piece of paper, put it with a trem bling hand into his own. Immediately afterwards they proceeded on their journey, Some of his companions, who were in search of him, had observed this silent adventure, but at too great a distance to discover that Mosaics. the highly favored party was the illustrious bard. Approaching nearer, they saw their friend, to whom, being awakened, they mentioned what had happened. Milton opened the paper, and with surprise read the . following verses : " Occhi, stelle mortale Ministie de miei mali, Se chiuse n 1 accidente, Apparen desarere. * " Eager from this moment, to find out the fair incog nita, Milton travelled, but in vain, through every part of Italy. His poetic fervor became more and more heated by the idea which he had formed of his unknown admirer ; and it is, in some degree, to her, that his own times, the present times, and the latest posterity, must feel themselves indebted for several of the most impassioned and charming compositions of the 4 Paradise Lost. " A contemporary humorist,f thus states the case of Cupid, in detail : "All men love all women. That is the primd facie aspect of the case. The Court of Nature assumes the law to be, that all men do so : and the individual man is bound to show cause why he does not love any parti cular woman. A man, says one of my old black- letter law-books, may show divers good reasons, as thus : he hath not seen the person named in the indict- * Ye eyes, ye human stars, ye authors of my loveliest pang ; if thus when shut, ye wound me, what must have proved the consequence had ye been open ? t Dr. Wendell Holmes. Single Blessedness. 215 ment ; she is of tender age, or the reverse of that ; she hath certain personal disqualifications, as, for instance, she is a blackamoor, or hath an ill-favored countenance ; or, his capacity of loving being limited, his affections are engrossed by a previous comer ; and so of other conditions. Not the less is it true that he is bound by duty, and inclined by nature to love each and every woman. Therefore it is that each woman virtually summons every man to show cause why he doth not love her. This is not by written document, or direct speech, for the most part, but by certain signs of silk, gold, and other materials, which say to all men: Look on me and love, as in duty bound. Then the man pleadeth his special incapacity, whatso ever that may be, as, for instance, impecuniosity, or that he hath one or many wives in his household, or that he is of mean figure, or small capacity ; of which reasons it may be noted, that the first is, accord ing to late decisions, of chiefest authority. So far the old law-book. But there is a note from an older authority, saying that every woman doth also love each and every man, except there be some good reason to the contrary ; and a very observing friend of mine, a young unmarried clergyman, tells me that, so far as his experience goes, he has reason to think the ancient author had fact to justify his statement." In Laceda3mon, there was a time fixed by law for a man to marry ; and if he did not comply with the requisition he was liable to prosecution. The Spartan legislator, Lycurgus, Plutarch says, " to encourage marriage still more, certain marks of infamy were set 216 Mosaics. upon those that continued bachelors." The Roman censors frequently imposed fines on them; and Halicar- nassus refers to a constitutional edict by which all per sons were obliged to marry. The Rabbins insist that by the Mosaic law every person of the age of twenty should marry. Lycurgus excluded bachelors from offices of trust, and at certain feasts they were paraded at the market-place to be laughed at ; and it is stated, that on these occasions, the ladies have been known to conduct them to the altars, and there compel them to make the amende honorable to nature ; if they became refractory, they were thrashed, and made to sing songs in their own derision. In 1695, a tax of one shilling a head was imposed upon all bachelors in England. Bachelors are not now taxed by government ; but they sometimes get lampooned by the ladies the first specimen we present is by Miss Muloch : " Scarcely any sight is more pitiable than a young man who has drifted on to past thirty, without home or near kindred ; with just income enough to keep him respectably in the position which he supposes himself bound to maintain, and to supply him with the various small luxuries such as thirty guineas per annum in cigars, etc. which have become habitual to him. Like his fellow-mortals, he is liable enough to the unlucky weakness of falling in love, now and then ; but he somehow manages to extinguish the passion before it gets fairly alight knowing he can no more venture to ask a girl in his own sphere to marry him, or be engaged to him, than he can coax the planet Venus out of her golden west into the dirty, gloomy, two-pair- Single Blessedness. 217 back where his laundress cheats him, and his landlady abuses him : whence, perhaps, he occasionally emerges gloriously, all studs and white neck-tye to assist at some young beauty s wedding, where he feels in his heart he might once have been the happy bridegroom if from his silence she had not been driven to go despe rately and sell herself to the old fool opposite, and is fast becoming, nay, is already become, a fool s clever mate a mere woman of the world. And he what a noble ideal he has gained of our sex, from this and other similar experiences ! with what truth of emotion will he repeat, as he gives the toast of The bride- maids, the hackneyed quotation about pain and sorrow wrinkling the brow, and smile half-adoringly, half- pathetically, at the ministering angels who titter around him In the slow process of inevitable deterioration, by forty he learns to think matrimony a decided humbug ; and hugs himself in the conclusion that a virtuous, high-minded and disinterested woman, if existing at all, exists as a mere lusus naturce not to be met with by mortal man now-a-days. Relieving his feeling with a grunt half-sigh, half-sneer he dresses and goes to the opera or the ballet, at all events or settles himself on the sofa to a French novel, and ends by firmly believing us women to be what we are painted there !" Our next sketch is from the opposite sex : "An old bachelor is the true old fogy, and all others are but counterfeit presentments. Having isolated through a world composed of social circles, yet calling no woman wife, no child son or daughter, 10 218 Mosaics. he becomes the very incarnation of selfishness, and having willfully ignored one of the objects of his creation, he lives lonely, and dies unloved and unre gretted. With all his affections burnt out of him, he remains like the fabled apples of the Dead Sea, fair enough to the eyes, but within all dust and ashes. His first folly was that of believing himself sufficient for his own happiness; his second, the obstinate persistence in this belief, in spite of instinct, reason and the impulses of his better feelings. His penalty is to lead a cheerless life, with no tender heart to sympathize in his troubles, no gentle hand to smooth his pillow in sickness, nor any dear voice to whisper comfort in his agony, or to lull him to repose with a low murmuring song, which calls up old memories and links together in a magic chain of melody, the past, the present and the future." * By way of variety, we subjoin a poetic portrait, as eccentric in its measure as the class it portrays : " They are wanderers and ramblers never at home, Making sure of a welcome wherever they roam ; And every one knows that the Bachelor s den Is a room set apart for these singular men A nook in the clouds, of some five feet by four, Though sometimes, by chance, it may be rather more, With skylight or no light, ghosts, goblins, and gloom, And everywhere termed The Old Bachelor s Room. These creatures, they say, are not valued at all, Except when the herd gives a Bachelors Ball. * T. S. Arthur. Single Blessedness. 219 " Then, drcst in their best, In their gold-broidered vest, It is known as a fact, That they act with much tact, And they lisp, How d ye do ? And they coo, and they woo, And they smile, for a while, Their fair guests to beguile ; Condescending, and bending, For fear of offending. " Though inert, And they spy, They exert With their eye, To be pert, And they sigh, And to flirt, As they fly, " And they whisk and they whiz, And are brisk at the quiz. " For they meet Advancing, To be sweet, And glancing, And are fleet And dancing, On their feet, And prancing. "Sliding and gliding with minute pace, Pirouetting and setting with infinite grace, "And jumping, And racing, And bumping, And chasing, And stumping, And pacing, And thumping, And lacing, " They are flittering and glittering, gallant and gay, Yawning all morning, and lounging all day. " But when he grows old, And his sunshine is past, Threescore years being told, Brings repentance at last. 220 Mosaics. " He then becomes an odd old man : His warmest friend s the warming pan ; He s fidgety, fretful and weary ; in fine, Loves nothing but self, and his dinner, and wine. " He rates and he prates, And reads the debates : " Despised by the men, and the women he hates, " Then prosing, And poring, And dozing, And snoring, And cozing, And boring, And nosing, And roaring, " Whenever he falls in with a rabble, His delight is to vapor and gabble ; " He s gruffy, And musty, And puffy, And fusty, " He sits in his slippers, with back to the door " Near freezing, And grumbling, And wheezing, And mumbling, And teasing, And stumbling, And sneezing, And tumbling, " He curses the carpet, or nails in the floor. " Oft falling, Oft waking, Oft bawling, Oft aching, And sprawling, And quaking, And crawling, And shaking, " His hand is unsteady, his stomach is sore. " He s railing, TJncheery, And failing, And dreary, And ailing, And weary, Single Blessedness. 221 " And groaning and moaning, His selfishness owning, Grieving and heaving, Though naught is his leaving But pelf and ill-health, Himself and his wealth. " He sends for a doctor to cure or to kill, Who gives him advice, and offence, and a pill, Who drops him a hint about making his will. As fretful antiquity cannot be mended, The mis rable life of a bachelor s ended. Nobody misses him, nobody sighs, Nobody grieves when the bachelor dies" Thus much for the indictment now for the defence. First, it is admitted, with worthy old Cljauter, that bachelors do not enjoy, even with their boasted liberty, perpetual sunshine. His words are : " Thise bachelers singen, alas ! Whan that they find any adversitee In love, which n is but childish vanitee. And trewely it sit wel to be so, That bachelors have often peine and wo." The case for the defence is, perhaps, sufficiently made out in the following soliloquy, after the manner of Hamlet : " To wed, or not to wed, that is the question : Whether tis better all alone to suffer The jokes and laughter of mischievous maidens; Or to take wife, despite a thousand troubles, And, by thus wedding end them? To ask to wed 222 Mosaics. Doubt o er; and, with a wife, to say we end The heart-ache, and the greatest natural want That man is heir to tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To ask ; to wed ; To wed! perchance a vixen ; aye, there s the rub; For in that state of joy, what storms may come When we have shuffled off this single coil, Must make us pause : That s a result That makes calamity of married life ; For who would bear the jests and jeers of men, The maiden s scorn, the widow s cruelty, The pangs of despised love, the day s delay, The insolence of rivals and the slights The doubtful lover of a fair one takes, When he himself might his quietus make With the first asking? Who such burdens bear, And groan and sigh, under a single life ; But that the fear of something after marriage The dread connubial state, from whose bourn No bachelor returns puzzles our wills ; And makes us rather bear the ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of." Bachelors are not always optimists, and yet we find one of the number consoles himself with the follow ing complacent conclusion on the subject of celibacy: " Deem not their earthly portion less, Who share not matrimonial joys ; With fewer cares, let them rejoice In single blessedness. II love has bliss, it has distress, Irs pleasures mingled with alloys. Let, those who both ignore, rejoice In single blessedness." Single Blessedness. 223 It is somewhat singular that any persons should be found to prefer a single to a double portion of earthly felicity ; it must be pretty conclusive proof of their narrow-mindedness and moral obliquity. We agree with Sbjenngson, where he says " I hold it true, whate er befall I feel it when I sorrow most, Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all." The unmarried among the fair sex we approach with proper delicacy, for they are usually the sinned against, not the sinning. They have been too frequently the victims of neglect or caprice. As a class, "old maids" have been maliciously maligned; for the very name has become a term of reproach; the odious epithet has come to be a synonym for scandal-loving, ill-temper, and everything that is ungracious in a woman. Be cause she is unmarried, it does not follow that a woman is heartless; on the contrary, when her affections are not centred upon one object, they usually are distri buted among many. But we prefer to let an exem plary instance * plead her own defence, which she has done, more effectively than we can hope to do, in the following passage : "That they have not married is very seldom owing to the want of opportunity, though in some instances this may be the case, for usually their talents are not of that dashing and showy order most appreciable to, men. * Alice Gary. 224: Mosaics. " They understand very well that the position they occupy is not the highest and noblest one ordained for women, but they cannot see that it would mend matters at all to make themselves up into merchantable articles, advertise themselves for sale, be appropriated by the highest bidder, to darn his stockings, roast his pota toes, or preside in his drawing-room, as the case might require, especially when to gain this bad eminence, if it be an eminence, they are required to make oath of everlasting allegiance to their master nay, more, to love and honor as well as obey as if to love and honor could be imposed upon woman by any requisition except the law of her heart, though she sware to do so by every star in heaven. " To the opprobrious epithet, old maid, a dozen uncharitable accusations join themselves immediately, for by the dint of sneer and jeer it has come to be believed almost universally, that a woman who is past twenty-five, and is unmarried, feeds upon scan dal, tears out the eyes of pretty young women and children drains the teapot, and bestows all the little charity she has upon cats ! " I have known, in the course of my life, a good many old maids, and I cannot now recall a single one whose life was not a contradiction of the lies that closed about her like an atmosphere I recall several of the most modest, self-sacrificing, and exemplary women it has ever been my happiness to know. " Who, of all the neighbors is likeliest to be sent for to take charge of the family when the wife or mother goes away visiting ? who is called on when the fever Single Blessedness. 225 breaks out? who makes the shroud, and lends her own black silk dress and crape shawl, over and over with out grudging ? Why, in almost every instance, it is one of that abused class, whose hearts are truer and tenderer, and whose hands are readier to do w r hat they find to do, than any other hands. Scarcely a family is there that has not, at some time, found one of these pitied and excommunicated women a ministering angel. " All credit to those, say I, who have the courage to brave expatriation the strength to resist temptation, and wear meekly and unobtrusively that most beau tiful ornament woman ever can wear truth. And she is true to the best aspirations of her nature true to her purest convictions, who keeps her heart for the heaven above her, if she cannot find it in the world below. If she does not find it here, it is her misfortune, not her fault." " Oh ! say not her heart is selfish and cold, And that nothing her love can arouse ; For who but she, to the sick and the old, Is the angel in every house ?" " Almost every house numbers among its inmates that most worthy character, the maiden lady. Can- any home be deemed whole or perfect, without one ? She is the cordon sanitaire of every rising generation. She combines in her person the Executive and Admi nistrative power of the State Domestic ! No human power is more uniformly exercised, and none so diffi cult to avoid or abridge. To be out of work, would 10* 226 Mosaics. be to be out of her head. Her oneness of life invites to, and matures, habits of thought and action that are rarely acquired in the same degree by the matron. The latter is privileged to lean, and, like the tower of Pisa, she is more attractive by doing so. The former must remain erect, or part with some portion of her independence. Remove her suddenly, and doubt, dis may, and discord would probably descend on the next day. She can so project herself into a multiplicity of matters, as not to compromise her individuality." ||liss Jl^gfokk has some excellent remarks on the subject, which are forcible and enthusiastic she says: " We raise our voice with all our might against the miserable cant that matrimony is essential to the feebler sex that a woman s single life must be useless or un dignified that she is but an adjunct of man in her best estate, a helm merely to guide the nobler vessel. Aside from the great tasks of humanity, for which masculine capacities are best fitted, we believe she has an inde pendent power to shape her own course, and to force her separate sovereign sway. Happily no illustration is needed, at this day, to prove that maidens can per form with grace and honor, duties from which wives and mothers ase exempted by their domestic neces sities. Our sisters of mercy and charity, however they may be called, are limited to no faith and to no peculiar class of ministration. Their smiles brighten the whole world." Uliss |$lttlaclj has also charmingly sketched a portrait of a virtuous maiden, thus : " She has not married. Under heaven, her home, Single Blessedness. 227 her life, her lot, are all of her own mking. Bitter or sweet they may have been it is not ours to meddle with them, but we can any day see their results. Wide or narrow as her circle of influence appears, she has ex ercised her power to the uttermost, and for good. . . . Published or unpublished, this woman s life is a goodly chronicle, the title-page of which you may read in her quiet countenance ; her manner, settled, cheerful, and at ease ; her unfailing interest in all things and all people. You will rarely find she thinks much about herself; she has never had time for it. And this her life-chronicle, which, out of its very fullness, has taught her that the more one does, the more one finds to do she will never flourish in your face, or the face of Heaven, as some thing uncommonly virtuous and extraordinary. She knows that, after all, she has simply done what it .was her duty to do." A gallant defender of the sex thus loyally confesses his admiration of old maids : " I love an old maid ; I do not speak of an individual, but of the species ; I use the singular number, as speaking of a singularity in hu manity. An old maid is not merely an antiquarian she is an antiquity ; not merely a record of the past, but the very past itself; she has escaped a great change, and sympathizes not in the ordinary mutations of mor tality. She is Miss from the beginning of the chap ter to the end. They are Spectators of the world, not Ramblers nor Adventurers, perhaps Guardians / we say nothing of Tattlers. They are evidently predesti nated to be what they are. Thoy owe not the singu larity of their condition to any lack of wisdom, wit or 228 Mosaics. good temper; there is no accounting for it but on the principle of fatality." " In every sphere of woman wherever her low voice thrills with the characteristic vibrations which are softer and sweeter than all the other sweet notes in nature s infinite chorus, maidens have a mission to fulfill as serious and as honorable as those of a wife s devotion, or a mother s care a mission of wider and more vari ous range." u I am a lover of all womankind, And maidens old are not old maids to me Though beauty flies, there still remains the mind, And mind is surely better company. What though the harp be new, and trimmed with gold, Does sweeter music tremble in its tone, Than when the gaudy polish has grown old, And naught is left but sweet accord alone ? Or is the gem held in less high esteem, Because the casket is defaced by time ? A woman s mind a priceless gem I deem Her heart a harp that music yields sublime ; No wonder then that years hide not from me The jewel s glow the harp s sweet melody." A true woman is seen in all her grace and glory within the hallowed precincts of home "the soil most congenial to the opening blossom of feminine loveli ness where it blooms and expands in safety, in the fostering sunshine of maternal affection, and where its heavenly sweets are best known and appreciated. Yet some there are, and we delight to mention them, who min gle freely with the world, unsullied by its contaminations ; whose brilliant minds, like the stars of the firmament, Single Blessedness. 229 are destined to shed their light abroad and gladden every beholder with their radiance ; to withhold them from the world, would be doing it injustice ; they are inestimable gems, which were never formed to be shut up in caskets ; but to be the. pride and ornament of elegant society." " Like old wine, old coins and old books, those ladies who belong to the goodly phalanx of old maids are much esteemed by all who know their true value. These spinsters, about whom, in flippant moments we say flippant things, are many of them among the most true-hearted and self-denying of their sex. Their lives have been heroic poems, full of musical rhythm and lofty actions ; and could we read their secret history, we should find, that in many instances, they retained their single state, not because they had never met with Avooers, but because the troth they had plighted in youth was sacred even unto death, or because, in the spirit of Christian martyrs they had resolved, for a great purpose, to make a life-long sacrifice. The voca tion of the single woman is one of disinterestedness and self-denial. It is for her to visit the sick, to relieve the poor, to scatter good deeds from her on all sides, which, like the seed of the husbandman may spring up and produce an abundant fruitage." The oft-repeated scandal that old maids are ill-na tured and crabbed, as wine kept too long on the lees, which turns to vinegar is, therefore, by all means to be repudiated. That some instances of eccentricity are occasionally seen, must be admitted, and we read of them in olden times, as in the following : 230 Mosaics. " In good old times a fine lady was a most formidable animal, and required to be approached with the same awe and devotion that a Tartar feels in the presence of his Grand Lama. If a gentleman offered to take her hand, except to help her into a carriage, or lead her into a drawing-room, such frowns, such rustling of bio- cade and taffeta ! her very paste shoe-buckles spark led with indignation, and for a moment assumed the brilliancy of diamonds ! In those days the person of a belle was sacred ; it was unprofaned by the sacrilegious grasp of a stranger ; simple souls, they had not the waltz among them yet! . . . . My good Aunt Charity prided herself on keeping up this buckram delicacy ; and if she happened to be playing at the old fashioned game of forfeits, and was fined a kiss, it was always more trouble to get it than it was worth : for she made a most gallant defence, and never surrendered until she saw her adversary inclined to give over his attack. Once, on a sleighing-party with her, it fell to my lot, as we came to kissing bridge, to levy contributions on Miss Charity, who, after squalling at a hideous rate, at length jumped out of the sleigh plump into a snow bank, where she stuck fast as an icicle, until I came to her rescue. This latonian feat cost her a rheumatism which she never thoroughly recovered. It is rather remarkable that my aunt, though a great beauty, and an heiress withal, never got married. The reason she alleged was that she never met with a lover who resembled Sir Charley Grandison, the hero of her nightly dreams and waking fancy ; but I am privately of opinion that it was owing to her never having had Single Blessedness. 231 an offer ! This much is certain, that for many years previous to her decease, she declined all attentions from the gentlemen, and contented herself with watching over the welfare of her fellow-creatures. But though she was as good a soul as ever lived, the truth must be told she was afflicted with one fault extremely rare among her gentle sex it was curiosity. It played the very vengeance with her, and destroyed all the com fort of her life. Having an invincible desire to know everybody s character, business and mode of living, she was forever prying into the affairs of her neighbors ; and got a great deal of ill-will from people towards w^hom she had the kindest disposition possible.* Re member the fate of poor Aunt Charity the victim of unsatisfied curiosity, all ye ladies who are so observant of the affairs of your neighbors, and negligent of your own. Horace Jlmitlj observes: "Every man, like Narcissus, becomes enamored of the reflection of himself, only choosing a substance instead of a shadow. His love for any particular woman is self-love at second hand vanity reflected compound egotism. When he sees himself in the mirror of a female face, he exclaims how intelligent, how amiable, how interesting how admirably adapted for a wife ! and forthwith makes his proposals to the personage so expressly calculated to keep him in countenance." " Man is but a rough pebble without the attrition received from contact with the gentler sex ; it is won derful how the ladies pumice a man down into a * Salmagundi. 232 Mosaics. smoothness which occasions him to roll over and over with the rest of his species, jostling, but not wounding his neighbors, as the waves of circumstances bring him into collision with them." * Sjjtriban said, beautifully, "women govern us ; let us render them perfect ; the more they are enlightened, so much the more shall we be. On the cultivation of the mind of women depends the wisdom of men. It is by women that Nature writes on the hearts of men." One grand purpose of woman s power over man s heart, now that both are fallen, is the maintenance of man s self-respect ; a man who loves a true-hearted woman, aims to sustain in himself whatever such a woman can love and reverence. They mutually put each other in mind of what each ought to be to the other. If once mutual respect depart, then farewell the love that can alone rectify what is wrong, then farewell the heart-rest, without which life becomes a delirium and an agony." If books are the sources of our mental aliment, women are the almoners of our social happiness. Jratthlw carries out the analogy still further ; he says: " Women are books, and men the readers be, Who sometimes in those books errata see; Yet oft the reader s raptured with each line, Fair print and paper, fraught with sense divine ; Though some, neglectful, seldom care to read, And faithful wives, no more than Bibles heed ! " * Marryat. Single Blessedness. 233 It lias been beautifully said, that the foundation of all happiness is faith in the virtue of woman. How much we owe to the social influence of woman, it would be difficult to estimate. She not only may be said to embellish life with many nameless charms and graces, but she inspires our stern and rugged nature with an aesthetic love for the beautiful in art, as well as for the cultivated amenities and refinements which enrich, adorn and beautify existence. " The bread of life is love," says |Jlr<3. |anteson, " the salt of life is work, the sweetness of life is poesy, and the water of life, faith." A true woman is a compend of them all." We do not believe that such a character as a cheer ful and contented old bachelor ever existed. If the truth were known, we have not the slightest doubt that Socrates experienced more real contentment, even with the shrewish and crabbed Xantippe, than ever fell to the lot of the most even-tempered bachelor. Man was never intended to live alone. If he had been, Eve would never have been called into existence to cheer the solitude of Adam. Upon a close analysis of the pains and pleasures incident to matrimony, and of those incident to a life of celibacy, we think it will be found that even a sour-tempered wife is better than no wife at all, and if this be indeed the case, what a life of serene enjoyment must that man lead who secures a prize in the lottery of matrimony ! Robert Souibcg observes: "A man may be cheerful and contented in celibacy but I do not think he can ever be happy ; it is an unnatural state, and the best feelings of his nature are never called into action. 234: Mosaics. The risks of marriage are for the greater part on the woman s side; women have so little the power of choice, that it is not perhaps fair to say that they are less likely to choose well than we are ; but I am per suaded that they are more frequently deceived in the attachments they form, and their opinions concerning men are less accurate than men s opinions of their sex." Unless man look to woman as a treasure to be wooed and won her smile the charm of his exist ence her single heart the range of his desires that which deserves the name of love cannot exist; it is struck out of the healthful system of society. Now, if there be a passion in the human breast which most tends to lift us out of egotism and self which most teaches us to live in another which purifies and warms the whole moral being it is love. For even when the fair spring of youth has passed, and when the active life is employed in such grave pursuits that the love of his early years seems to him like a dream of romance, still that love, having once lifted him out of egotism into sympathy, does but pass into new forms and development it has unlocked his heart to charity and benevolence it gives a smile to his home it rises up in the eyes of his children from his hearth it cir culates insensibly on to the laws that protect the hearth, to the native land which spreads around it. Thus in the uniform history of the world we discover that wherever love is created, as it were, and sanctioned by that equality between the sexes which the permanent and holy union of one heart with another proclaims, Single Blessedness. 235 there, too, patriotism, liberty the manly and the gentle virtues, will be found."* " There is hardly anything in the world so beautiful as the union of two loving hearts, that are united because of their love and for no unworthier reason. There is hardly any augury of promise so auspicious as an early love that looks toward marriage as its faithful seal and signet. There is hardly any festival among men so genial and happy as a wedding-day. There is a sacredness in the thought of husband and wife, which is more than beautiful." " Men are as much stimulated to mental effort by the sympathy of the gentler sex, as by the desire of power and fame. Women are more disposed to appreciate worth and intellectual superiority than men, or at least, they are as often captivated by the noble manifestations of genius, as by the fascinations of manners and the charms of person." f oSgbneg JSrnitb says : " Among men of ease and liberal politeness, a woman who has successfully cultivated her mind, without diminishing the gentleness and propriety of her manners, is always sure to meet with a respect and attention bordering upon enthusiasm." Again, another writer observes that, " Of all other views a man may, in time, grow tired, but in the coun tenance of women there is a variety which sets weari ness at defiance." " The divine right of beauty," says Junius, " is the only divine right a man can acknow ledge, and a pretty woman the only tyrant he is not authorized to resist." * Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. t Disraeli. 236 Mosaics. One of the great benefits a man may derive from women s society is, that he is bound to be respectful to them. The habit is of great good to your moral man, depend upon it. Our education makes of us the most eminently selfish men in the world. We fight for our selves, we push for ourselves, we yawn for ourselves, we light our pipes, and say we won t go out ; we prefer our selves, and our ease ; and the greatest good that comes to a man from a woman s society is that he has to think of somebody beside himself, somebody to Avhom he is bound to be constantly attentive and respectful.* The following curious apology for celibacy is from an American bishop : " If I should die in celibacy, which I think quite probable, I give the following reasons for what can scarcely be called my choice : I was called to preach in my fourteenth year. I began my public exercises be tween sixteen and seventeen. At twenty-one I entered the travelling connection. At twenty-six I came to America. Thus far I had reasons enough for a single life. It had been my intention to return to Europe, but the war continued, and it was ten years before we had settled lasting peace. This was no time to marry or to be given in marriage. At forty-nine I was or dained superintendent or bishop in America. Among the duties imposed upon me by my office was that of travelling extensively, and I could hardly expect to find a woman with grace enough to enable her to live but one week out of the fifty-two with her husband ; be sides, what right has any man to take advantage of the * Thackeray. Single Blessedness. 237 affections of a woman, make her his wife, and by vol untary absence subvert the whole order and economy of the marriage state by separating those whom neither God, nature, nor the requirements of civil society per mit long to be put asunder ? It is neither just nor generous. I may add to this that I had but little mo ney, and with this little I administered to the necessi ties of a beloved mother till I was fifty-seven. If I have done wrong, I hope God and the sex will forgive me. It is my duty now to bestow the pittance I have to spare, upon the widows, and fatherless girls and poor married men." Our fair readers will admit there is reason in the above clerical apology ; but in that which follows, its force will be found to consist in rhyme rather than rea son: "Oh! talk not of wedlock, its comforts and joys, There s no pleasure on earth that more speedily cloys ; From squalling, from squeaking, from scolding I m free, Oh ! a jolly old Bachelor life for me. " My friends who are married all pity my case, And turn to me oft quite a pitying face ; Saying, Yours, my dear boy, is a very hard doom, To drag through this world in loneness and gloom ; Without succor or sympathy, comfort or care, Be advised now and marry while you ve got any hair ; How sweet, when you come home from business at night, To be met with a wife s smiles so charming and bright! Well, when I come home I have no one to wait, But there s no one to scold me for being out late ! "Though my needle I ve frequently got to essay, When buttons from coats or from shirts fall away ; 238 Mosaics. Though my bed lu> ill made and my shirts be not aired. My kerehiofs unhiMumed and my stockings unpaired ; Though the ladies, wheu er at a ball I appear, Cry What brings that horrid old bachelor here? Yet to bear ills wo have it is better to try, Than to others of which we know nothing to fly. And to jump from the frying pan into the fire, Is a feat to perform I feel no desire. " If Boz s new novel I sit down to read, I need not lay it down to nurse baby instead ; No squalling to rob me at night of my rest, Xo hands full of pap to destroy my new vest ; True, sometimes I think of my lonely death-bed, Of my grave, over which not a tear shall be shed ; But ought it to ease our last moments to know That the hearts we love dearest arc bursting with woe ? Pshaw ! it never will do towards the future to look ; Fetch that box of cigars, John, and Moore s Lalla Rookh. " * Matrimony has undoubtedly its pains and penalties, but it has also its pure pleasures, its gentle endear ments and its serene peace. It has its burdens, but their pressure is scarcely felt, or cheerfully sustained by the sweet charities of domestic love. A felicitous marriage is the fruit of mutual affection, esteem and forbearance ; an infelicitous union that of their oppo- sites. " Marriage is an institution calculated for a constant scene of as much delight as our being is capable of. Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species, with design to be each other s mutual comfort and entertainment, have in that action bound them- * John Brougham. Single Blessedness. 239 selves to be good-humored, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other s frail ties and imperfections to the end of their lives. The wiser of the two will, for her or his own sake, keep things from outrage with the utmost sanctity. When this union is thus preserved the most indifferent cir cumstance administers delight. Their condition is an endless source of new gratifications."* "The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions, the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling." f Truthfully as poetically has it been said, " the only fountain in the wilderness of life, where man drinks of water totally unmixed with bitter ingredients, is that which gushes for him in the calm and shady recesses of domestic life. Pleasure may heat the heart with artificial excitement, ambition may delude it with golden dreams, war may eradicate its fine fibres and diminish its sensitiveness ; but it is only domestic love that can render it truly happy." " Sweet are the joys of home, And pure as sweet ; for they, Like dews of morn and evening, come To wake and close the day." It has been said that the love which is nearest in its type to the supernal, is that which is sometimes found to be reciprocated by persons of the same sex. It is * Spectator. t Coleridge. 24:0 Mosaics. purely intellectual and spiritual, unprofaned by any mixture of lower instincts. It has its illustration in the instance of the love of Socrates for Alcibiades. Thus the timid and the beautiful seek the strong and the courageous: the mute and unendowed seek the gifted and the eloquent. Celibacy cannot claim divine authority for although the apostles were unmarried marriage was instituted by God himself, and sanctioned by our Saviour in his first recorded miracle, at the marriage of Cana in Galilee. The instinctive impulses of our nature can never be annihilated. Marriage is a natural necessity and law of our being. Many, however, from unworthy motives infringe the law either to indulge their van ity, or their selfishness ; and many also from the force of circumstances. Celibacy is not, therefore, morally superior to mar. riage. Since, therefore, marriage is the highest destiny of her sex, it is not surprising that it should be the innate desire of woman. The term celibacy owes its origin to Calebs unmarried ; Misogynism is another term for bachelorhood. Woman (a title now almost obsolete), is derived from the Anglo-Saxon wif-man. Man is a general term to include each sex ; and the specific name wif-man was given to the female, from her employment at the woof; and wcep-man, from his occupation in weapons of war. Thus we get the word wife. Spinster is the name given to unmarried women, because they were presumed to be occupied in spinning. King Alfred, in his will, styles the feminine portion of his family the Single Blessedness. " spindle-side !" So, too, Egbert, when entailing his estates on his male descendants to the exclusion of the females, uses the phrase " to the spear-side," and not to the "spindle-side." Old Ration: affirms, with his usual quaintness, that there are twelve reasons in favor of marriage, of which the first six are the following: "First, hast thou means? thou hast one to keep and increase it. Second, hast thou none ? thou hast one to help to get it. Third, art in prosperity? thine happiness is doubted. Fourth, art in adversity? she ll comfort, assist, bear a part of thy burden, to make it more tolerable. Fifth, art at home ? she ll drive away melancholy. Sixth, art abroad ? she looks after thee going from home, wishes for thee in thy absence, and joyfully welcomes thy return." An anonymous writer thus volunteers his advice to wives : " Good wives to snails should be akin, Always their houses keep within ; But not to carry (fashion s hacks) All they have upon their backs. Good wives like echoes still should do- Speak only when they re spoken to ; But not like echoes (most absurd), Ever to have the final word. Good wives like city clocks should rhyme, Be regular and keep in time But not like city clocks, aloud, Be heard by all the vulgar crowd." gliss ^renter beautifully expresses a good wife s duty : " If you will learn the seriousness of life, and its 11 242 Mosaics. beauty also, live for your husband ; be like the nightin gale to his domestic life ; be to him like the sunbeams between the trees ; unite yourself inwardly to him ; be guided by him ; make him happy / and then you will understand what is the best happiness of life, and will ac quire, in your own eyes, a worth with God and with man." Old ^fjomas Jfwller thus portrays a perfect wife : " She commandeth her husband in any equall matter, by constantly obeying him. She never crosseth her husband in the spring-tide of his anger, but stayes till it be ebbing water. And then mildly she argues the matter, not so much to condemn him as to acquit herself. She keeps home if she have not her husband s companie or leave for her patent to go abroad. For the house is the woman s centre. Her clothes are rather comely than costly, and she makes plain cloth to be velvet by her handsome wearing it. She is none of our dainty dames, who love to appear in variety of sutes every day new, as if a good gown, like a stratagems in warre, were to be used but once. Her husband s secrets she will not divulge. Especially she is careful to conceal his infirmities." " Alas ! what little miffs and tiffs in love, A snubbish word, or pouting look mistaken, Will loosen screws with sweethearts hand and glove Oh love ! rock firm when chimney-pots were shaken, A pettish breath will into huffs awaken, To spit like hump-backed cats, and snarling towzers ! Till hearts are wrecked and foundered, and forsaken, As ships go to Old Davy, Lord knows how, sirs, While heaven is blue enough for Dutchman s trowsers." * * Hood. Single Blessedness. 243 The great secret is to learn to bear with each other s failings ; not to be blind to them ; that is either an impossibility or a folly ; we must see and feel them ; if we do neither they are not evils to us, and there is obviously no need of forbearance ; but to throw the mantle of affection around them, concealing them from each other s eyes ; to determine not to let them chill the affections; to resolve to cultivate good-tempered forbearance, because it is the way of mitigating the present evil, always with a view to ultimate amend ment. Surely it is not the perfection, but the imper fection of human character that makes the strongest claim in love. All the world must approve, even enemies must admire the good and the estimable in human nature. If husband and wife estimate only that in each which all must be constrained to value, what do they more than others ? It is infirmities of character, imperfections of nature, that call for the pitying sym pathy, the tender compassion that makes each the comforter the monitor of the other. Forbearance helps each to attain command over themselves. Few are the creatures so utterly evil as to abuse a generous confidence, a calm forbearance. Married persons should be preeminently friends, and fidelity is the great privilege of friendship. The forbearance here contended for is not the weak and wicked indulgence of each other s faults, but such a calm, tender observ ance of them as excludes all harshness and anger, and takes the best and gentlest methods of pointing them out in the full confidence of affection. " In the heyday of her husband s love, while his heart 24:4: Mosaics. beats responsive to her every wish, and his mind is a fair tablet on which none but summer thoughts are engraved, she should begin the study of his character, so that when the necessity arises, she may be able to accommodate her own plastic one to it, without effort or inconvenience. Indeed, with both of them this should early be an object of anxiety, so that gradually there should grow up between them a conciliatory pre disposition of tone and manner which, when brought into requisition, would appear more a habit than a duty. Both husband and wife object to anything that looks like compulsion ; they each turn away from even a duty, when clothed in repelling garments ; and from this it will be apparent how necessary it is that the soil of their tempers, and peculiar mental and moral idio syncrasies, should as early as practicable be sown only with those seeds which in after years will yield the sweet-smelling flowers that shed such a delicious per fume over hallowed and long-tried wedded love." * " One of the noblest social achievements of the Gospel has been to elevate the ministering angel of the world to a position of perfect equality with man in all that relates to the essential prerogatives of personal and spiritual being. It is the most splendid example, without exception, which history affords of the tri umph, on a large scale, of the law of right over the law of force, and of the law of love over the law of lust." " Man, restless under suffering, is apathetic enough as to ascertaining the source of the blessings he enjoys, or paying the debt of gratitude he owes in their behalf. * Ponsonby. Single Blessedness. 245 And now we do not seem to know by what great pro vidence of God by what vigilance, labor, and courage of men the institution of marriage has been wrought up, in this fallen and disordered world, to the state of strictness in which we see it, and which renders it the most potent instrument by far, among all laws and institutions, both in mitigating the principle of personal selfishness, and in sustaining and consolidating the fabric of society." * " Are not the kindnesses of wives often unnoted, unthanked, unregarded? Remember, that these com panions of your existence fill offices of dignity and high usefulness. They are shut out from the world s applause ; let them rest in the assurance of your grati tude and consideration. When you see them still and cold in death, it will not grieve you to remember that your love has thrown sunshine into the shade of their allotment, that your prayers and example have given them aid in the right training of your children." f " The eyes that look with love on thee, That brighten with thy smile, Or mutely bid thee hope again, If thou art sad awhile ; The eyes that, when no words are breathed, Gaze fondly into thine Oh, cherish them ! once gone, alas ! They may not always shine ! " The faithful hearts around thee, That glow with love and youth, That time and care ne er yet have seared, Xor ravished of their truth ; * Quarterly Review. t Rev. T. Brainerd 246 Mosaics. The hearts whose beatings we have heard When throbbing near our own Oh, cherish them! those beatings hushed, Earth s dearest tones are gone." Possibly some chance reader of these pages may be moved by their persuasive appeal, to take the subject to heart; and therefore we subjoin a few preliminary hints for his guidance. " It is true that our ideal wives and husbands generally differ very much from our real experience in the marriage state ; but never theless it is our duty to have a high standard for those who are to be our partners in life. Before you may determine the propriety of entering into the relation, you must analyze the character and disposition of the proposer, no less than your own. Discover Avhether your dispositions and temperaments harmonize, if your intellectual forces are proportioned to mutual improve ment and comfort, and if your physical conditions are sufficient for a happy future. Marriage is a matter of philosophy ; not of whim, caprice or emotion. I do not believe in ^falling in love. The great question is, does the party possess the requisite qualifications for your joint happiness ? Then, again, I do not cherish the old notion that woman is subordinate to man. When it is capable of demonstration, that neither can be physically or socially independent of the other, how can man, in these years of progress because he possesses more physical strength, and, usually, more developed intellect than he has permitted woman to attain aim to continue the feudal relation ? Shall man say that lie is the sole worker and producer ? Is the installa- Single Blessedness. 247 tion of morality and knowledge in the young noddle so easy of accomplishment ? Is it nothing to continue, year after year, from blooming youth to silver age, good housewifery, peace, and the nameless graces and amenities of a charming, heart-purifying and glorifying home ? Ah ! man Lord of creation ! it is time that you laid down your vaunted boast, and acknow ledge the truth ; that though separate organisms, mental and physical, you are not complete, comforted, independent, and ennobled until united with God s own flower, and your equal woman !" Matrimony has been supposed uncongenial with lit erary pursuits. When Michael Angelo was asked why he did not marry, he replied, " I have espoused my art, and it occasions me sufficient domestic cares, for my works shall be my children." The domestic life of ge nius seems to be accompanied by so many embarrass ments of the head and heart, that to add to them is unnecessary. When a young artist, who had just mar ried, told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he was preparing to pursue his studies in Italy, the great painter replied, " married ! then you are ruined as an artist !" The same principle has influenced literary men. . Sir Thomas Bodley had a smart altercation with his first librarian, insisting that he should not marry, maintaining its ab surdity in one who had the perpetual charge of a pub lic library. Boyle, who would not suffer his studies to be interrupted by "household affairs," lived as a boarder with his sister. Newton, Locke, Leibnitz, Boyle, and Hobbes, and Hume, Gibbon, Jonson, and Adam Smith decided for celibacy. The list might be much extended 248 Mosaics. in later times. It has been suggested, however, that in the deprivation of domestic joys and comforts has usually been the concealed cause of the querulous mel ancholy of the literary character. Such was the real occasion of Shenstone s infelicities. He had been capti vated in early life by a young lady, but she died in stead of becoming his wife, and he had the fortitude afterwards to refuse marriage yet his plaintive love- songs flowed from no fictitious source. "It is long since," he says, " I have considered myself as undone. The world will not perhaps consider me in that light entirely, till I have married my maid." Montaigne de clared when a widower, that " he would not marry a sec ond time, though it were wisdom itself." Probably his connubial relations were somewhat " uncongenial," after the type of those of our two great modern novelists. The energetic character of Dante could neither soften nor control the asperity of his lady ; and when that great poet lived in exile, she never cared to see him more. John Milton had his domestic disturbances: to this fact we owe his celebrated treatise on Divorce. On the other hand many men of letters have left their high testimony in praise of their exemplary wives, among them the younger Pliny, Buffon, Gessner, etc. " Sir Walter Scott was a literary man of the very highest class ; a man who tried many departments of writing, and succeeded in them all and he was mar ried for thirty years, made a love match, and was hap py in the marriage state. South ey was a fortunate and happy husband. Home was all in all to him ; whereas it can be nothing, or worse than nothing, to a man who Single Blessedness. 249 is miserably married. He married a second time, his second wife being a lady of literary standing, and both were happy. Mr. Cooper, who was one* of the most successful of writers, was happily married, and his do mestic life was singularly free from trouble. Lamar- tine is well known to have married fortunately in all respects. Moore s wife was one of the noblest crea tures that ever lived. She made her husband s home happy. Pie was never tired of writing of her excel lence. If Shelley s first marriage the marriage of a boy and a girl, who knew nothing of human life was unfortunate, his second marriage can be quoted as a model union. Wordsworth made a love match, and his love was lasting as his home was blessed. Pro fessor Wilson, of Blackwood memory, made a happy marriage, and his wife is said to have exercised more influence over him than any other person. Her death was the greatest misfortune he ever knew. Dr. John son, whose wife was old enough to be his mother, with some years to spare, found nothing unpleasing in the marriage state. His last biographer says he continued to be under the illusions of the wedding-day, till the lady died in her sixty-fourth year, the husband being but forty-three. Sir Walter Raleigh was the first lit erary man of his day, after Shakspeare and Bacon, and at middle life he married a beautiful woman eighteen years his junior, and the marriage was productive of much happiness. We know but little of Shakspeare s life a very strong presumptive proof that he lived well but what little we do know is sufficient to show that, though he married, when a boy, a woman 250 Mosaics. eight years his senior, he was not unhappy as a hus band." Many of our poets whose sentimental sonnets are so moving and affecting to all sensitive minds were mere theorizing bachelors. Of these poetical old bachelors, we find the classic names of Racine, Boileau, Corneille, in French poetical literature. In English poetry we find Gray, a real specimen of the genus. He amassed a prodigious stock of learning, accomplished his im mortal "Elegy" and is supposed to have possessed a heart, but the best information we can obtain does not inform us what he did with it. Collins, whose " Ode to the Passions," dismisses the passion of love in a couplet, was to the end a bachelor, so was also Gold smith, Shenstone and Thomson. Pope, it will be remembered, had many lady-loves ; so had Swift. In taking leave of our quondam friends, the bache lors, we venture to express the hope that what has been adduced in pleasant raillery and sober earnest, may have the effect that is said to have attended the dis course on love by Socrates ; he pressed his point with so much success, that all the bachelors in his audience took a resolution forthwith to marry, and all the mar ried men took horse and hastened home to their wives. " For my own part, I was born in wedlock, and I do not care who knows it ; for which, among many others, I should look upon myself as a most insufferable cox comb, did I endeavor to maintain that misery was inseparable from marriage, or to make use of husband and wife as terms of reproach. Nay, I will go one step further and declare before the whole world, that I Single Blessedness. 251 am a married man; and at the same time I have so much assurance as not to be ashamed of what I have done." " Books can instruct, and books can amuse, apd books can exalt and purify ; beauty of face and beauty of form will come with bought pictures and statues, and for the government of a household hired menials will suffice ; but fondness and hate, daring hope, lively fear, the lust for glory, and the scorn of base deeds, sweet charity, faithfulness, pride, and chief over all, the impetuous will, lending might and power to feeling these are the rib of a man, and from these, deep-veiled in the mystery of her very loveliness, his true com panion sprung. A being thus ardent will often go wrong in her strenuous course will often alarm sometimes provoke will now and then work mischief, and even perhaps grievous harm, but she will be our own Eve after all the sweet-speaking tempter whom Heaven created to be the joy and the trouble of this pleasing anxious existence to shame us away from the hiding-places of a slothful neutrality, and lead us abroad in the world, men militant here on earth, endur ing quiet, content with strife, and looking for peace hereafter." * Do you wish a graphic picture of domestic bliss ? Here is one ; we do not know the limner, but it is life like. We hope it will not have the effect of appalling any sturdy bachelor, but on the contrary, allure him by the fascination of the scene. * Edinburgh Rev. 252 Mosaics. "I am A married lady of thirty odd. Every evening I see in their beds A baker s dozen of curly heads. Every morning my slumbers greet The patter, patter, of twenty -six feet. Thirteen little hearts are always in a flutter, Till thirteen little mouths are filled with bread and butter. Thirteen little tongues are busy all day long, A.nd thirteen little hands, with doing something wrong, Till I fain am to do, With an energy, too, As did the old woman who lived in a shoe. And when my poor husband comes home from his work, Tired and hungry, and fierce as a Turk, What do you think in the picture he sees? A legion of babies, all in a breeze. Johnny a-crying, And Lucy a-sighing, Ana worn-out mamma, with her hair all a-flying, Strong and angry William, beating little Nelly ; Charley in the pantry, eating currant jelly ; Richard strutting round in papa s Sunday coat ; Harry at the glass, with a razor at his throat ; Robert gets his fingers crushed when Susy shuts the door, Mitigates their aching with a forty- pound roar; Baby at the coal-hod hurries to begin, Throwing in his might to the universal din. Alas ! my lord and master, being rather weak of nerve, he Begins to lose his patience in the stunning topsy-turvy, And then the frightened little ones all fly to me for shelter ; And so the drama closes, mid a general helter-skelter." There is no truth in the old scandal, which we quote simply for the purpose of repudiating it: namely, that Single Blessedness. 253 " Marriage, as old men note, hath likened been Unto a public feast, or common rout Where those that are without would fain get in, And those that are within, would fain get out." Nor is there any more truth in the following subtile insinuation of Punch " Which is of greater value pry thee say The bride or bridegroom? Must the truth be told? Alas, it must ; the bride is given away, The bridegroom often regularly sold." Many have assailed the marriage state with ridicule, but every good thing has shared the same fate ; the shafts of ridicule never injure the true and beautiful; they are sure to recoil back upon those who aim them, glean JSfoift (himself a fine specimen, forsooth, to satirize others) is among their number. Now, if the last cen sus is to be depended upon, it seems there are in Great Britain no less than 359,969 old maids, over forty years of age ; something ought therefore certainly to be done for their relief and rescue. As it is probable there are an equally ominous number of old bachelors, the best thing to be done is to commend the matter to their serious regard, and at the same time subjoin a few hints to aid them in the good endeavor to render double that number of personages supremely happy. Assuming, then, that some man of taste will at once avail himself of the chances offered, we subjoin a bit of advice to him: " Good sir, you ll show the best of your skill To pick a virtuous creature, 254 Mosaics. Then pick such a wife as you love a life, Of a comely grace and feature. The noblest part, let it be her heart, Without deceit or cunning ; With a nimble wit, and all things fit, With a tongue that s never running ; The hair of her head it must not be red, But fair and brown as a berry ; Her forehead high, with a crystal eye, And lips as red as a cherry." You must not, however, expect perfection, for Eve, with her fair daughters, lost that and Eden together ; and it is fortunate for poor, erring man, that he may find " A creature not too bright or good For human nature s daily food ; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles." If such a bright vision should chance to befall any wayfaring seeker after matrimonial pleasures, let him not be content to cherish the ideal beauty, but woo her till he win her to himself. We recommend rapid courtships, although it is said, that the trysting time is the sweetest romance of life. No, sirs, urge your suit gently, but earnestly, and success will be the result. The Hibernian making love to an heiress was in earnest, when he told her he could get no sleep at nights for drowning of her ! When a man is married, his relations to the sex at large are essentially changed. By a sort of intuition, the married man is detected by the keen eye of the spinster. The fact is indisputable ; but the philosophy Single Blessedness. 255 of it is beyond our ken. A writer in Blackwood thus attempts its explanation : " The fact of matrimony or bachelorship is written so legibly in a man s appearance, that no ingenuity can conceal it. Everywhere there is some inexplicable instinct that tells us whether an individual (whose name, fortune, and circumstances are totally unknown) be he, or be he not a married man. Whether it is a certain subdued look, such as that which characterizes the lions in a menagerie, and distinguishes them from the lords of the desert, we cannot tell ; but that the truth is so, we positively affirm." " Well, I confess, I did not guess A simple marriage vow Would make me find all woman-kind Such unkind women now ! They need not, sure, as distant be As Java or Japan Yet every miss reminds me this I m not a single man ! Ah me, how strange it is, the change, In parlor or in hall, They treat me so if I but go To make a morning call. If they had hair in papers once, Bolt up the stairs they ran ; They now sit still in dishabille I m not a single man ! Go where I will, I but intrude, I m left in crowded rooms, Like Zimmerman on solitude, Or Hervey at the tombs. From head to heel they make me feel, Of quite another clan, 256 Mosaics. Compelled to own, though left alone I m not a single man ! My spouse is fond of homely life, And all that sort of thing ; I go to balls without my wife, And never wear a ring ; And yet each miss to whom I come, As strange as Genglis Khan, Knows by some sign, I can t divine I m not a sigle man !" * A word about widows, and we withdraw our way ward pen from this ever-fertile theme wedlock. Sam Weller, in "Pickwick," received a solemn caution from his sire to beware of vidders. It may be judicious in us, also, to observe the injunction ; at any rate, it should inspire us with caution, in treating so delicate a subject. We are apt to associate the widow with weeds which are not so enticing as flowers. Widows are said, also, to be deeply versed in human nature. They know more of the follies and frailties of that biped, man, than it is at all times desirable they should. We have read many strange things about their cunning and adroitness in love matters. A poet has thus sketched the widow : " She is modest, but not bashful, Free and easy, but not bold Like an apple ripe and mellow, Not too young, and not too old. Half inviting, half repulsive, Now inviting, now too shy ; There is mischief in her dimple, There is danger in her eye. *Hood. Single Blessedness. 257 She has studied human nature She is schooled in all the arts She has taken her diploma As the mistress of all hearts. She can tell the very moment When to sigh and when to smile ; Oh, a maid is sometimes charming, But a widow all the while. Are you sad ? how very serious Will her handsome face become ; Are you angry ? she is wretched, Lovely, friendless, tearful, dumb ; Are you mirthful ? how her laughter, Silver-sounding, will ring out, She can lure, and catch, and play you, As the angler does the trout." Another phase of widowhood, we presume, will not be the less amusing because it comes to us with such undoubted authority. "When an Arab woman intends to marry again after the death of her husband, she comes before the grave of her first husband. Here she kneels, and prays to him not to be offended and jealous. She brings with her a donkey laden with two goats skins of water. The prayers ended, she proceeds to pour on the grave the water, to keep the first husband cool under the irritating circumstances about to take place ; and having well saturated him she departs." Honest old SDjjomas fuller presents us with a touching sketch of the widow of his time : " Her sorrow is no storm, but a still rain. Indeed, some foolishly discharge the surplusage of their pas sions on themselves, tearing their hair, so that their friends coming to the funerall know not which most to 258 Mosaics. bemoan, the dead husband or the dying widow. Yet commonly it conies to passe, that such widow s griefe is quickly emptied, which streameth out at so large a vent ; whilst their tears that but drop will hold running a long time." It is a happy thing that widows are not always weep ing: after the storm comes the bright sunshine over woman s sweet face : and as it is impossible to resist the fascination of its smile even through her tears, we come to the sage and safe conclusion that widows also are no less deserving of our love, our hearts and hands. ORIGIN OF CELEBRATED BOOKS. C4 TF the secret history of books could be written," said Sjracktrag, " and the author s private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader." In obedience to this suggestion, we have essayed to group together a few illustrative facts of this class, but without any attempt at classification ; in the hope that some one more competent to the task may hereafter digest and complete what is here, necessarily, so incomplete. If the brevity of our selections be deemed a fault, we cite, in self-defence, the remark of $oliaitt, where he thus asserts the absolute necessity of condensation : " The multiplicity of facts and writings is become so great," he says, " that everything must soon be reduced to extracts." Books, as Dryden has aptly termed them, are spectacles to read nature. Eschylus and Aristotle, Shakspeare and Bacon, are the high priests who expound the mysteries of man and the universe. They teach us to understand, and feel what we see, to deci pher and syllable the hieroglyphics of the senses. 259 . . - . 260 Mosaics. " All books grow homilies by time ; they are Temples at once and landmarks. In them we live, Who, but for them, upon that inch of ground We call the present, from the cell could see No daylight trembling on the dungeon bar. Turn as we list, the world s great axle round, Traverse all space, and number every star, And feel the near, less household than the far! There is no past so long as books shall live." * " It is remarkable that many of the best books of all sorts have been written by persons who, at the time of writing them, had no intention of becoming authors. Indeed, with slight inclination to systematize and exaggerate, one might be almost tempted to maintain the position however paradoxical it may at the first blush appear that no good book can be written in any other way; that the only literature of any value, is that which grows directly out of the real action of society, intended to effect some other purpose ; and that when a man sits down doggedly in his study, and says to himself, I mean to write a good book, it is certain, from the necessity of the case, that the result will be a bad one." f La Rochefoucauld remarks that nature seems to have concealed at the bottom of our minds, talents and abilities of whose very existence we were not conscious ; and that the passions have the prerogative of bringing them to light. " The pas sions act as winds to propel our vessel our reason is the pilot that steers her ; without the winds she would not move ; without the pilot, she would be lost." "There is a joy in writing, which none but writers * Sir E. Bulwer Lytton. t Edward Everett. Origin of Celebrated Books. 261 know. What a number of writers in our literature have all their real title to esteem from this geniality and joy of utterance! In this consists their genius. The remark will apply particularly to the essayists. Evidently, Montaigne wrote in the mere love of writing. He wanted to express himself, and all that he has written is not only in the manner, but in the spirit of a Monologue. Addison evidently loved to write, and found a joy in writing. It is this joy in writing which gives to the compositions of Addison their wealth, and music, and beauty. He does not instruct he enchants. You do not look to him for new truths, but you are sure to find in him fresh emo tions. They well up from his nature in all its senses, affections and passions. Yet, had not Addison loved to write, the world would have lost all that Addison has given it. Then there is Charles Lamb ; we should have had nothing from him in letters but for his love of writing. He was no machine that could be regu lated by the debt and credit sides of a balance-sheet. He longed for anpther life, which only the pen of free thought and free excitement could give him. And then Hazlitt, what a joy he had in writing! The fact is, no one can do writing well, who has not this joy. Without it, the style is mechanical and artificial. The lyric flow of inspiration is never in it. Without joy, style is merely rhetoric, and there is nothing so remote from eloquence as rhetoric. It is no wonder that ancient sages and bards thought it inspiration. Glo rious it is, beyond all other arts." * It is also reniark- * Henry Giles. 262 Mosaics. able that, as a rule, the realm of authorship is parvenu as to its origin ; yet is the aristocracy of talent but the more noble and illustrious on this very account. " Whoe er amids the sons Of reason, valor, liberty, and virtue, Displays distinguished merit, is a noble Of nature s own creating. Such have risen, Sprung from the dust ; or where had been our honors ?" * "A great, a good, and a right mind," said HmetH, "is a kind of divinity lodged in flesh, and may be the blessing of a slave, as well as of a prince ; it came from heaven, and to heaven it must return. It is a kind of heavenly felicity, which a pure and virtuous mind enjoys, in some degree even upon earth." If many have become authors by accident rather than design, the same may be also affirmed of many of our most valuable discoveries. " It has been asked, which are the greatest minds, and to which do we owe the greatest reverence ? To those who by the powerful deductions of their reason, and the well-grounded suggestions of analogy, have made profound discoveries in the sciences, as it were d priori / or to those, who, by the patient road of experiment, and the subsequent improvement of instru ments, have brought these discoveries to perfection, as it were d posteriori f Who have rendered that cer tain, which before was only conjectural; practical, which was problematical ; safe, which was dangerous, and subservient, which was unmanageable ? It would * Thomson. Origin of Celebrated Books. 263 seein that the first class demand our admiration, and the second our gratitude. Seneca predicted another hemisphere, but Columbus presented us with it " * " Great thoughts, great feelings came to them, Like instincts, unawares." f " Among these men are to be found the brightest specimens, and the chief benefactors of mankind. It is they that keep awake the finer parts of our souls, that give better aims than power or pleasure, and with stand the total sovereignty of Mammon on this earth. They are the vanguard in the march of mind, the intellectual backwoodsmen, reclaiming from the idle wilderness new territories for the thought and activity of their happier brethren. Pity, that from all their conquests, so rich in benefit to others, themselves should reap so little. If an author s life is more agi tated and more painful than that of others, it may also be made more spirit-stirring and exalted ; fortune may render him unhappy ; it is only himself that can make him despicable. The history of genius has, in fact, its bright side as well as its dark, and if it is distressing to survey the misery and debasement of so many gifted men, it is doubly cheering, on the other hand, to reflect on the few who, amid the temptations and sorrows to which life, in all its provinces (and most in theirs), is liable, have travelled through it in calm and virtuous majesty, and are now hallowed in our memories." J Of the numerous instances in which the world is indebted to seeming accident for the development of * Colton. t Milnes. % Carlyle. 264: Mosaics. eminent genius, as well as great discoveries in science, we present the following : "A basket placed by accident over a weed and covered with a tile, is recorded by Vitruvius as the origin of the Corinthian capital." " Father Malebranche, having completed his studies in philosophy and theology, without any other -inten tion than devoting himself to some religious order, little expected to become of such celebrity as his works have made him. Loitering, in an idle hour, in the shop of a bookseller, in turning over a parcel of books, 4 L Homme de Descartes fell into his hands. Having dipped into some parts, he was induced to peruse the whole. It was this circumstance that produced those profound contemplations which gave birth to so many beautiful compositions in physics, metaphysics, and morality, which have made him pass for the Plato of his age." " Cowley became a poet by accident. In his mother s apartment he found, when very young, Spenser s Faerie Queen; and, by a continual study of poetry, he was so enchanted of the muse, that he became irrevocably a poet." " Johnson informs us, that Sir Joshua Reynolds had the first fondness of his art excited by the perusal of Richardson s Treatise. " " Vaucanson displayed an uncommon genius for mechanics. His taste was first determined by an accident ; when young, he frequently attended his mother to the residence of her confessor ; and while she wept with repentance, he wept with weariness! Origin of Celebrated Books. 265 In this state of disagreeable vacation, says Helvetius, he was struck with the uniform motion of the pendulum of the clock in the hall. His curiosity was roused ; he approached the clock case, and studied its mechanism ; what he could not discover, he guessed at. He then projected a similar machine ; and gradually his genius produced a clock. Encouraged by this first success, he proceeded in his various attempts ; and the genius which could thus form a clock, in time formed a fluting automaton." " If Shakspeare s imprudence had not obliged him to quit his wool-trade, and his town ; if he had not engaged with a company of actors, and at length, disgusted with being an indifferent performer, he had not turned author, the prudent wool-seller had never been the celebrated poet." " Accident determined the taste of Moliere for the stage. His grandfather loved the theatre, and fre quently took him there. The young man lived in dis sipation ; the father observing it, asked in anger, if his son was to be made an actor. "Would to God," replied the grandfather, " he was as good an actor as Montrose." The words struck young Moliere ; he took a disgust to his tapestry trade ; and it is to this circum stance that France owes her greatest comic writer." We owe the great discovery of Newton to a very trivial accident. When a student at Cambridge, he had retired during the time of the plague into the country. As he was reading under an apple-tree, one of the fruit fell upon his head. When he observed the smallness of the apple, he was surprised at the force of 12 266 Mosaics. the stroke. This led him to consider the accelerating motion of falling bodies, from whence he deduced the principle of gravity, and laid the foundation of his philosophy. Flamsteed was an astronomer by accident. He was taken from school on account of illness, when Sacrobosco s book, i De SphaBra, having been lent to him, he was so pleased with it that he immediately commenced a course of astronomical studies. Frank lin attributes the cast of his genius to the following accident: I found a work of De Foe s entitled An Essay on Projects, from which, perhaps, I derived impressions that have since influenced some of the principal events of my life." Benjamin West stated that his mother once kissed him eagerly, when he showed her a likeness he had sketched of his baby sister ; and he adds, " that kiss made me a painter." "Dr. Beddoe s Alexander s Expedition down the Hydaspes and the Indus to the Ocean originated in a conversation in which it was contended that Darwin could not be imitated. Dr. Beddoe, some time after wards, produced the MS. of the above poem as Darwin s, and completely succeeded in the deception." "Gower s Confessio Amantis was written at the command of Richard II. who, meeting Gower rowing on the Thames, invited him into the royal barge, and, after much conversation, requested him to book some new thing. Chaucer, it is generally agreed, intended in his Canterbury Tales to imitate the Decameron of Boccaccio." * * Notes and Queries, Origin of Celebrated Books. 267 " Marraontel, when a schoolboy, was unjustly chas tised by his master, and resented the injury by writing so severe a lampoon on him that he (Marmontel) was compelled to run away. He entered himself as a pri vate soldier under the Prince of Conde, and, when made sergeant, wrote his charming tale of 4 Belisarius. " Sterne said of his "Tristram Shandy," that he under took it as a satire upon pedantry and false learning. Burkitt wrote his " Commentary on the New " Tes tament," it is said, for a wife, and he obtained his prize. It is hoped this was not his only motive. Turnerelli, when at school, being asked to describe the ancient capital of the Tartar Khans, Kazan, and failing to do so, the subject so impressed his mind that he subse quently made a journey thither and published his account of it. It is reported that, Gilbert West s work on the " His tory and Evidences of the Resurrection," owes its exist ence, like Chalmer s " Evidences of Christianity," to the skeptical tendency of its author, his original purpose having been to summon proofs for the refutation of the very doctrine of which he subsequently became the able advocate. The author of " The Castle of Otranto " says, in a letter now in the British Museum, that it was sug gested to him in a dream, in which he thought himself in an ancient castle, and that he saw a gigantic hand in armor on the uppermost banister of the great stair case.* * " When you read of the picture quitting its panel, did not you recollect the portrait of Lord Falkland, all in white in the gallery ? Shall I even confess to 268 Mosaics. Richardson s character was a good deal formed by circumstances, and undoubtedly much affected by the circle of which he was the centre. " He lived in a kind of flower-garden of ladies," who were at once his models and critics. He drew the characters of his heroines from the characters he saw around him, and subjected his writing to the judgment of that body of his readers whom he thought best fitted to appreciate them. At the request of a number of "the trade," he undertook to write a volume of familiar letters for the youth of the lower classes, in which he would not only aim at giving them words for composition, but also infuse his own ethical code of practical duties ; thus he meditated directions to young women going out to ser vice ; he intended to give his views of the parental and filial relations, and similar mutual obligations. From a letter of the first sort a mere acorn to the oak into which it expands sprang the history of Pamela. The way once found, and success attending the novel attempt, he was induced, once and again, to appear in you what was the origin of the romance ? I waked one morning, in the begin ning of last June, from a dream, of which all I could recover was, that I had thought myself in an ancient castle (a very natural dream for a head filled like mine with Gothic story), and that on the uppermost banister of a great staircase I saw a gigantic hand in armor. In the evening I sat down and began to write, without knowing in the least what I intended to say or relate. The work grew on my hands, and I grew fond of it add, that I was very glad to think of any thing rather than politics. In short, I was so engrossed with my tale, which I completed in less than two months, that one evening I wrote from the time I had drunk my tea, about six o clock, till half an hour after one in the morning, when my hand and fingers were so weary that I could not hold the pen to finish the sentence, but left Matilda and Isabella talking, in the middle of the para graph " Walpoltfs Letters. Origin of Celebrated Books. 269 the same character of fictitious writer, embodying, in his second work of Clarissa Harlowe, his idea of " a perfect woman, nobly planned;" and in Sir Charles Grandison a sort of male Clarissa the abstraction of a perfect man. It is stated that "The Vicar of Wakefield" was sug gested by the " Journal of a Wiltshire Curate." The former, however, was published in March, 1766, and the latter did not appear in print (in the " British Magazine ") till the following December. As Goldsmith was a con tributor to that work, it is supposed he furnished the " Journal of the Wiltshire Curate," so that the suppo sition of plagiarism ceases from this source.* " The Deserted Village " had for its locale, the ham let of Lissoy, county Westmeath, Ireland. Auburn was the poetic name Goldsmith gave to it. The name of the schoolmaster was Paddy Burns: "he was, indeed," writes Mr. Best, an Irish clergyman, " severe to view." A dame called Walsey Cruse, kept the ale-house. " Imagination fondly stoops to trace The parlor splendors of that festive place." Jlir |jas!ja |lcjmolhs gives an anecdote of Goldsmith while engaged upon his poem, which may not be fami liar to all. " Calling upon the poet one day, he opened the door without ceremony, and found him in the double occupation of turning a couplet and teach ing a pet dog to stand upon his haunches, At one time he would glance his eye at his desk, and at ano- * Notes and Queries. Mosaics. ther shake his finger at the dog to make him retain his position. The last lines in the page were still wet they form a part of the description of Italy " By sports like these are all their cares beguiled ; The sports of children satisfy the child. Goldy joined in the laugh caused by this whimsical employment, and acknowledged that his boyish sport with the dog, suggested the stanza." An amusing adventure which occurred in Goldsmith s last journey from home to Edgeworthstown school, is believed to have given birth to the chief inci dent in the drama of " She Stoops to Conquer." Having set off on horseback there being then no regular wheeled conveyance thither from Ballymahon he loitered on the road, amusing himself bv viewing the neighboring gentlemen s seats. A friend had fur nished him with a guinea, and the desire, perhaps of spending it in (to a schoolboy) the most independent man ner at an inn, tended to slacken his diligence on the road. Night overtook him in the small town of Ardagh, about half way on his journey. Inquiring for the "best house in the place, meaning the best inn, he chanced to address, it is said, a person named Cornelius Kelly, who boasted of having taught fencing to the Marquis of Granby, and was then domesticated in the house of Mr. Featherstone, a gentleman of fortune in the town. He was known as a notorious wag, and willing to play off a trick upon one whom he, no doubt, discovered to be a swaggering schoolboy, directed him to the house of his patron. Origin of Celebrated Books. 271 Suspecting no deception, Oliver proceeded as di rected ; gave authoritative orders about the care of his horse ; and, being thence conceived by the servants to be an expected guest, was ushered into the presence of their master, who immediately discovered the mistake. Being, however, a man of humor, and willing to enjoy an evening s amusement with a boy under the influence of so unusual a blunder, he encouraged it, particularly when, by the communicative disposition of the guest, it was found that he was the son of an old acquaint ance, on his way to school. Nothing occurred to undeceive the self-importance of the youth, fortified by the possession of a sum he did not often possess; wine was therefore ordered, in addition to a good supper, and the supposed land lord, his wife and daughters were invited to partake of it, On retiring for the night, a hot cake was ordered for breakfast the following morning ; nor was it until pre paring to quit the house the next day, that he disco vered he had been entertained in a private family. Goldsmith s "Traveller" is founded on Addison s " Letter from Italy " to Lord Halifax, 1701. The origin of the " Rape of the Lock " is as follows : " The stealing of Miss Belle Fermor s hair," says JJojje, "was taken too seriously, and caused an estrange ment between the two families, though they had lived so long in great friendship before. A common ac quaintance, and well-wisher to both, desired me to write a poem to make a jest of it, and laugh them together again. It was with this view that I wrote 272 Mosaics. the "Rape of the Lock," which was well received, and had its effect in the two families. " Nobody but Sir George Brown was angry ; but he was a good deal so, and for a long time. He could not bear that Sir Plume should talk nothing but nonsense. Copies of the poem got about, and it was likely to be printed; on which I published the first draft of it, without the machinery, in a miscellany of Tonson s. The machinery was added afterwards, to make it look a little more considerable, and the scheme of adding it was much liked and approved by several of my friends, and particularly by Dr. Garth, who, as he was one of the best-natured men in the world, was very fond of it." "I have been assured," says ^jjmce, "by a most intimate friend of Mr. Pope, that the peer in the " Rape of the Lock " was Lord Petre ; the person who desired Pope to write it, old Mr. Curyl of Sussex; and that what was said of Sir George Brown in it was the very picture of the man." Woodworth s ballad, "The Old Oaken Bucket," owes its birth to the following incident. One after noon, as was his custom, the poet and printer of New York repaired to Mallory s hotel, where he was met by some acquaintances, and they imbibed, of course. Woodworth pronounced the liquor super-excellent, and superior to anything he had ever tasted. " No," said Mallory, " you are mistaken ; there was one thing which, in both our estimations, far surpassed this, in the way of drinking." " What was that ?" asked Woodworth, dubiously. Origin of Celebrated Books. 273 " The draught of pure, fresh, spring water, that we used to drink from the old oaken bucket that hung in the well, after our return from the labors of the field on a sultry day in summer." The tear-drop glistened for a moment in Wood- worth s eye. " True true !" he replied, and shortly after quitted the place. He immediately returned to the office, grasped a pen, and in half an hour, the " Old Oaken Bucket," one of the most delightful compositions in our lan guage, was completed. The original of Hugh Strap, in Smollett s "Roderick Random," was one Hewson, upwards of forty years a barber in St. Martin s Parish, London. His shop was curiously decorated with Latin quotations. This genius is said to have left behind him an annotated copy of " Roderick Random," showing how far we are indebted to the invention of the author, and to what extent the incidents are founded in reality. It is generally supposed that St. Pierre s celebrated work, " Paul and Virginia," is purely fiction ; such is not the case. The general outline of the story is drawn from facts ; and the tombs of the hero and heroine still exist. The old church of Pamplemousses withstands the ravages of time, and the Morne de la Decouverte will be a more enduring monument than all. The memory of "Paul and Virginia" is still cherished by the people, many of whom bear their names. Colonel Sutcliffe, a Governor of Juan Fernandez, in his account of that island from its discovery by Don Juan Fernandez (after whom it was named) in 1572, Mosaics. gave to his volume the title of " Crusoniana," from the fact that it was the well-known abode of Alexander Selkirk on this island, which furnished Defoe with the materials of his inimitable romance of " Robinson Cru soe." From this source it is known that there was, previously to Alexander Selkirk, a solitary tenant of this island, whose sojourn there, as recorded by Dam- pier and Ringrose, must have been known to Defoe, as will be seen from the following extract from Colonel Sutcliffe s book, in which we trace the original of the story of Man Friday, and his discovery of his father, in Robinson Crusoe. "At the moment of the hurried escape of a crew of buccaneers from Juan Fernandez, one of their crew, a Mosquito Indian, named William, happened to be in the woods hunting goats, so that the ship was under sail before he got back to the bay. Poor Will had only the clothes on his back, a knife, a gun, a small horn of powder, and a few shot. His situation became still more critical when the Spaniards entered the bay, took up the anchors and cables, and, having caught sight of him, made a diligent search ; but he eluded their pursuit, and remained the sole human occupant of the island." His personal history, as chronicled by Dampier, is almost as romantic as that of Robinson Crusoe. It is as follows : "At first he could procure scarcely any food but seals, which he found but ordinary eating ; some other articles he obtained by means of his powder and shot, but these were soon expended. He next made a saw Origin of Celebrated Books. 275 of his knife, by notching it, and so, by incessant labor, cut the barrel of his gun into small pieces. He kindled a fire by striking with the gun flint against a piece of the barrel. Having heated the pieces of iron, he ham mered them out, and bent them just as he pleased with hard stones, and sawed them with his jagged knife. By persevering industry, he ground them to an edge, and hardened them to a good temper as there was occasion ; and thus he procured harpoons, lances, fish hooks, and a long knife. All this may seem strange to those who are not acquainted with the sagacity of the Indians ; but it is no more than these Mosquito men jare accustomed to in their own country, where they make their own fishing and striking instruments with out either forge or anvil, though they spend a great deal of time about them. Having obtained these con veniences, he no longer lived upon seals, nor did he afterwards ever kill any, except when he wanted lines, which he made by cutting the seal-skins into thongs. He had now a plentiful and comfortable subsistence, living upon goats, birds, or fish, as best suited his inclination ; his clothes were worn out, but he supplied their place by fastening a skin round his waist. He built a house or hut, about half a mile from the sea, which he lined with goat-skins ; to render it complete, his couch of sticks, raised about two feet distant from the ground, was spread with the same, and constituted his only bedding. During the period of William s resi dence on the island, he was often sought for by the Spaniards ; and at one time, being guided by the light of his fire, they nearly surprised him. This escape, and Mosaics. his having frustrated, by his activity and wiles, all their endeavors to take him, made his pursuers consider him to be a supernatural being. Will could easily distin guish his friends from the Spaniards by the rigging and appearance of their vessels and boats ; and on two English ships making their appearance, he almost went frantic with joy, supposing they came on purpose to fetch him away : of such consequence is a man to him self. In order to give them a hearty welcome, he caught and killed three goats, and dressed them with the chonta, (cabbage palm) that he might be ready to treat the crews as soon as they came on shore. On their landing, he was recognized by a Mosquito Indian, named Robin, who was the first that leaped on shore. Will had stationed himself at the seaside, dressed in his goat-skin, to congratulate them on their arrival. The meeting of the two Indians, and old friends, was affecting." Dampier gives the following description of the scene he witnessed : " Robin ran to his brother Mosquito-man, threw himself flat upon his face at his feet, who, helping him up and embracing him, fell flat with his face on the ground at Robin s feet, and was by him taken up also. We stood with pleasure to behold this interview, which was exceedingly affec tionate on both sides ; and w r hen their ceremonies of civility were over, we also, that stood gazing at them, drew near. Each of us embraced him we had found there, who was overjoyed to see so many of his old friends come hither, as he thought, purposely to fetch him." " Dampier and Edmund Cook were his former shipmates. The latter was now only a private seaman, Origin of Celebrated Books. 277 and Will found, that although his friend had not made so long a voyage merely on his account, they proved themselves not unmindful of him ; for, as soon as they had anchored, they immediately got out their boat on purpose to send for him. They stayed, to refit and refresh themselves, from the 23d of March to the 8th of April, 1684. Will was very useful in procuring goats, of which there was an abundance on the island; and, after having resided there alone for three years, two months, and eleven days, he em barked with his former friends, to renew the avocation of a buccaneer." Some one may be ready to say with an old admirer of this renowned book, who read it through many times ; " Your information may be correct, but I had rather you had withheld it ; for by thus undeceiving me, you have deprived me of one of the greatest pleasures of my old age." Gibbon relates thus the circumstances which sug gested the writing of his great work : " It was at Rome, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, on the 15th of October, 1764, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the 4 decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven or twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a summer-house, in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a covered walk of acacias which commands a prospect of the country, the lake and the mountains. I will not dissemble the first emo- 278 Mosaics. tions of joy, on the recovery of my freedom, and per haps the establishment of myfame." He continues : " I will add two facts which have sel dom occurred in composition, of six or at least five quartos my first rough MS., without any intermediate copy, has been sent to the press ; 2d. Not a sheet has been seen by any human eye, except those of the au thor and printer the faults and merits are exclusively my own." The Edinburgh Review was first published in 1802. The plan was suggested by Sydney Smith, at a meet ing of literati^ in the eighth or ninth flat or story, in Buccleugh-place, Edinburgh, then the elevated lodg ing of Jeffrey. The motto humorously proposed for the new review by its projector was, "Tenui musam meditamur avena" i. e., "We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal ;" but this being too nearly the truth to be publicly acknowledged, the more grave dieturn of "Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur" was adopted from Publius Syrus, of whom, Sydney Smith affirms, " None of us, I am sure, ever read a sin gle line !" Lord Byron, in his fifth edition of " English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," refers to the reviewers as an " oat-fed phalanx." * Cowper s " Task" owed its origin to a request made by his friend, Lady Austen, that he would try his powers at blank verse. He promised to make the experiment if she furnished him a subject : " Oh, you can never be in want of a subject," she replied, " you can write upon * Notes and Queries. Origin of Celebrated Books. 279 any, write upon this sofa." The poet obeyed her com mand, and produced " The Task" a poem of compre hensive variety and beauty, breathing a spirit of the purest and most exalted morality. When Cowper was forty-five, he was induced by Mrs. Unwin to write a poem, that lady giving him for a subject the " Progress of Error." It happened one afternoon, in those years when Cow- per s accomplished friend Lady Austen made a part of his kittle evening circle, that she observed him sinking into increased dejection. It was her custom, on these occasions, to try all the resources of her sprightly pow ers for his immediate relief. She told him the story of John Gilpin (which had been treasured in her memory from her childhood), to dissipate the gloom of the pass ing hour. Its effect on the fancy of Cowper had the air of enchantment. He informed her the next morn ing that convulsions of laughter, brought on by his recollection of her story, had kept him waking during the greatest part of the night, and that he had turned it into a ballad. Such is the origin of the pleasant poem of John Gilpin. The following is an extract from a letter written by ^jjornas (JLampkll to a relative in America, and aifords us the first impressions of the battle of Hohenlinden. " Never shall time efface from my memory the recol lections of that hour of astonishment and suspended breath, when I stood with the good monks of St. Jacob, to overlook a charge of Klenau s cavalry upon the French under Grennier, encamped below us. We saw the fire given and returned, and heard distinctly the 280 Mosaics. sound of the French fXM de charge, collecting the lines to attack in close column. After three hours awaiting the issue of a severe action, a park of artillery was opened just beneath the walls of the monastery, and several wagoners, who were stationed to convey the wounded in spring wagons, were killed in our sight. My love of novelty now gave way to personal fear ; and I took a carriage, in company with an Austrian sur geon, back to Landshut." " I remember," he adds, on his return to England, " how little I valued the art of painting, before I got into the heart of such impressive scenes ; but in Ger many I would have given anything to have possessed an art capable of conveying ideas inaccessible to speech and writing. Some particular scenes were rather over charged with that degree of the terrific which oversteps the sublime ; and I own my flesh yet creeps at the recol lection of spring wagons and hospitals ; but the sight of Ingoldstadt in ruins, or Hohenlinden covered with fire, seven miles in circumference, were spectacles never to be forgotten." The beautiful stanzas of Campkll on the Rainbow* beginning, " Triumphal arch, that fill st the sky, When storms prepare to part, I ask not proud philosophy To tell me what thou art" are doubtless derived in great part from an obscure Origin of Celebrated Books. 2S1 poem on the same subject by Henry Vaughan, who flourished about the middle of the 17th century.* A comparison of a few stanzas from Campbell s poem, with an extract from Vaughan s humbler effort, will make this sufficiently apparent : " When from the green, undeluged earth, Heaven s covenant thou didst shine, How came the world s grey fathers forth To watch thy sacred sign. " And when its yellow lustre smiled O er mountains yet untrod, Each mother held aloft her child, To bless the bow of God. ; The earth to thee her incense yields, The lark thy welcome sings, When glittering in the freshened fields The snowy mushroom springs. " And fresh in yon horizon dark, As young thy beauties seem, As when the eagle from the ark First sported in thy beam. "For, faithful to its sacred page, Heaven still rebuilds thy span, Nor lets the type grow pale with age That first spoke peace to man." Having listened to this golden music from the noblest lyric poet of his time, let us not disdain to lend an ear * Observer. 282 Mosaics. to the broken cadences of old Jentrg Uamjljatt ; nor let us be deterred from our purpose by the insinuations of Mr. Campbell, who, in his lives of the poets, has pronounced him to be " one of the harshest even of the inferior order of the school of conceit," and one who would not be entitled to the smallest notice, but that it must be acknowledged he has " some few scattered thoughts that meet our eye amidst his harsh pages, like wild flowers on a barren heath." Give the old man a hearing : From "Silex Scintillans, or Sacred Poems, by HENRY YAUGHAN." " Still young and fine, but what is still in view We slight as old and soil d, though fresh and new. How bright wert thou when Shem s admiring eye The burning, flaming arch did first descry ; When Zerah, Nahor, Haran, Abram, Lot, Th,e youthful world s grey fathers, in one knot, Did with intentive looks watch every hour For thy new light, and trembled at each shower I "When thou dost shine, darkness looks white and fair; Forms turn to music, clouds to smiles and air ; Rain gently spends its honey-drops, and pours Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers. Bright pledge of peace and sunshine, the sure tie Of thy Lord s hand, the object of his eye ! When I behold thee, though my sight be dim, Distinct and low, I can in thine see Him Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne, And minds the covenant betwixt all and one." The popular poem of " We are Seven," by fcorib, was composed, says the author, while walking Origin of Celebrated Books. 283 in the grove at Alfoxden. "My friends will not deem it too trifling to relate that while walking to and fro I composed the last stanza first, having begun with the last line. When it was all but finished, I came in and recited it to Mr. Coleridge and my sister, and said, A prefatory stanza must be added, and I should sit down to our little tea-meal with greater pleasure if my task were finished. I mentioned in substance w r hat I washed to express, and Coleridge immediately threw off the stanza thus : " A little child dear brother Jem. "I objected to the rhyme, dear brother Jem, as being ludicrous, but we all enjoyed the joke of hitch ing in our friend, James T s name, who was fami liarly called Jem. He was the brother of the dramatist, and this reminds me of an anecdote which may be worth while here to notice. The said Jem got a sight of the Lyrical Ballads, as it was going through the press at Bristol, during which time I w^as residing in that city. One evening he came to me with a grave face, and said, Wordsworth, I have seen the volume that Coleridge and you are about to publish. There is one poem in it which I earnestly intreat you will cancel, for if published, it will make you everlastingly ridiculous. I answered that I felt very much obliged by the interest he took in my good name as a writer, and begged to know what was the unfortunate piece he alluded to. He said It is called " We are Seven." Nay ! said I, that shall take its chance, however, and he left me in despair. 1 284: Mosaics. One story, thoroughly characteristic of Words worth s indifference to every production of modern growth but his own poetry, we recently heard from a friend. When "Rob Roy" was published, some of Mr. Wordsworth s friends made a pic-nic, and the amusement of the day was to be the neAv novel. He accompanied them to the selected spot, joined them at luncheon, and then said, " Now, before you begin, I will read you a poem of my own on Rob Roy. It will increase your pleasure in the new book." Of course, every one was delighted, and he recited the well-known verses ; and the moment he had finished, said, " Well, now I hope you will enjoy your book;" and walked quietly off, and was seen no more all the afternoon. The very rough mode in which he handled books showed how little he cared for them. Southey said, to let him into a fine library was like turning a bear into a tulip garden ; and De Quincey tells of his cutting open a " pracht-edition " of Burke with a knife he had just used to butter toast. What a contrast his pious remorse at the ravage of the nut-bough " I felt a sense of pain when I beheld The silent trees, and the intruding sky ;" and the earnest reverence of the exhortation that fol lows : "Then, dearest maiden! move along these shades In gentleness of heart ; with gentle hand ; Touch for there is a spirit in the woods." * * Brimley s Essays. Origin of Celebrated Books. 285 Milton s " Comus" was suggested by the circum stance of Lady Egerton losing herself in a wood. The origin of " Paradise Lost" has been ascribed by one to the poet having read Andreini s drama of " L Adama Sacra Representatione," Milan, 1633 (an Italian bur lesque) ; by another, to his perusal of Theramo s " Das Buch Belial," etc., 1472. Dunster says that the prima stamina of " Paradise Lost" is to be found in Sylves ter s translation of Du Barta s " Divine Weekes and Workes."* When the great plague was ravaging the metropo lis, Milton removed to Chalfont St Giles, in Bucking hamshire. The house had been hired for him by Elwood, the Quaker, who was then residing in the vicinity, having been driven from London by the per secutions he experienced on account of his peculiar tenets. " Here," says gr. %mmons, in his life of Mil ton, " the young Quaker called upon his friend, and received from him a manuscript, which the author desired him to carry home and to read at his leisure. This manuscript was that of Paradise Lost. After I had with the best attention read it through, says Elwood, " I made him another visit, and returned him his book, with due acknowledgment of the favor he had done me in communicating it to me. He asked me how I liked it, and what I thought of it : which I mod- * The " Divine Weekes," translated by Sylvester, the poet, and referred to by Ben Jonson, in encomiastic verses, and by others of the time of James I. The " Divine Weekes" is the first rude sketch of " Paradise Lost." It was pub lished when Milton was thirteen years old, and in the very street in which he lived. A fact rather in conflict with his preliminary line " Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." 286 Mosaics. estly and freely told him ; and, after some further dis course, I pleasantly said to him, Thou hast said much here of Paradise lost but what hast thou to say of Paradise found ? He made me no answer, but sat some time in a muse ; then broke off that discourse, and fell upon another subject. After the sickness was over, and the city well cleansed and become safely habitable again, he returned thither ; and when afterwards I went to wait upon him (which I seldom failed of doing whenever my occasions led me to London), he showed me his second poem, called Paradise Regained, and in a pleasant tone said to me, this is owing to you, for you put into my head by the question you put to me at Chalfont, what before I had not thought of. " Longfellow s " Hyperion" was written to win a wife, and the expedient proved of course successful. Shakspeare s play of " Hamlet " is founded on the story of Amleth, in the Danish history of Saxo Ger- manicus : although the dramatist has changed the plot and introduced the ghost a pure invention of his own. Nicholls, the well-known publisher, issued a volume entitled " Six Old Plays on which Shakspeare founded his Measure for Measure, c Comedy of Errors, 4 Taming of the Shrew, King John, Henry IV., and Henry V., and King Lear. " In the preface he states that Stevens is of this opinion, from the fact of frequent references being made to these old plays, by G. Whetstones, 1578. Their titles are as follows: " The right excellent and famous historic of Promos and Cassandra, divided into comical discourses ;" " The troublesome reign of King John ;" " The famous vie- Origin of Celebrated Books. 287 tories of Henry the fifth ;" " The true chronicle historic of King Leir and his 3 daughters," 2 pts. 1611 ; "The pleasaunte conceited historic called the Taming of a Shrew," 1605; "Menaecmi, a pleasante, fine, conceited coraedie, taken out of the most excellent wittie poet, Plautus: written into Englishe by W. W." 1595. "Macbeth," "Othello," "The Tempest," "Julius Ca3sar," and many others of the Tragedies, were never printed in Shakspeare s lifetime. It is ordinarily supposed that the first of Shak speare s original dramas, "The Two Gentlemen of Verona, " was written in the year 1591; in 1611 the last of those glorious creations, " The Tempest," was given to the world. This period of twenty years com prehends the entire literary career of the great poet. He retired at the age of fifty-eight, to his native Strat ford not as he left it, a poor adventurer, but with an income of about eight hundred pounds sterling per annum. Seven years passed away before it was thought worth while, by any one, to collect and publish his immortal works. In 1623 the first folio appeared having been executed by John Heminge and Henry Condell, who had been associated with him as actors and managers. This work appears to have been with them a work of aifection. The language of their preface is full of expressions evidencing a high and affectionate regard for the memory of "Gentle Will Shakspeare." There is every reason to believe that Shakspeare commenced his career as a dramatic author by adapt- 288 Mosaics. ing works of preceding writers to the stage. Before the end of 1592, he had certainly been thus employed; in that year Greene died, and left for publication his " Groat s worth of Wit," in which, alluding evidently to Shakspeare, he says, "There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers ; in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a country !" Think of this estimate of the Bard of Avon in connection with his last produc tion, " The Tempest ;" as if conscious that it would be his last, and as if inspired to typify himself, has made its hero a natural, a dignified, and a benevolent magi cian, who could conjure up spirits from the vasty deep, and command supernatural agency by the most seem ingly natural and simple means. According to Collier, Schlegel, Coleridge, and the best Shakspearean critics, this great, if not greatest of Shakspeare s works, is purely original in its conception and plot no early Italian romance or historic narrative having yet been discovered to which he could have been indebted for the incidents of the drama. The " Two Gentlemen of Verona," some critics suppose to have some resem blance, in parts, to Sir Philip Sidney s " Arcadia," and the "Diana" of Montemayor. The legend of the Wandering Jew, the earliest men tion of which bears date 1215, is supposed to be of Greek origin. Goethe s travestie of the story is de rived from an earlier appearance of the Wandering Jew in Europe. Every person has heard of, or read Dumas work on this subject. Dr. Southey has based the " Curse of Kehama" on this legend; and Dr. Croly has made it the subject of Origin of Celebrated Books. 289 his gorgeous romance, " Salathiel ;" but the fiction has never laid hold of the popular mind in England, as it has in France and Germany, though there are few superior to it in the power of captivating the imagination. The origin of that universal favorite with the juve niles, " Cinderella," is sufficiently curious. It was about the year 1730 that a French actor, of equal talent and wealth, named Thevenard, in passing through the streets of Paris, observed upon a cobbler s stall the shoe of a female, which struck him by the remarkable smallness of its size. After admiring it for some time, he returned to the house ; but his thoughts reverted to the shoe with such intensity, that he reap peared at the stall next day ; but the cobbler could give no other clue to the owner than that it had been left, in his absence, for the purpose of being repaired. Day after day did Thevenard return to his post to watch the reintegration of this slipper, which proceeded slowly; nor did the proprietor appear to claim it. Although he had completed the sixtieth year of his age, so extravagant was his passion for the unknown fair one, that he became (were it possible for a French man at that day to be so) melancholy and miserable. His pain was, however, somewhat appeased by the ava tar of the little foot itself, appertaining to a pretty and youthful girl, in the very humblest class of life. All distinctions were levelled at once by love ; the actor sought the parents of the female, and procured their consent to the match, and actually made her his wife. This calls to mind the origin of " Paul and Virgi nia." What child has not mused over, with moist- 13 290 Mosaics. ened eye, the touching narrative of their trials ? The name of Bernardin St. Pierre should live until the end of time, and then journey to a common grave with everything that is pure, and beautiful, and true. "Paul and Virginia were the children of his pure and vivid imagination !" should be his epitaph. Alas ! that the duty of the impartial traveller should be to deaden the bright coloring of romance with the leaden brush of sober truth. That Paul and Virginia never existed, is a fact that need not be mentioned here ; but that M. Mon- tendre and Mademoiselle Caillon (upon whose sad fate the story was based) did exist, and that they perished by an untimely and romantic death is not to be ques tioned. The facts which may not be known to all readers, were these, and are related in a letter of Lieut. Hartstein from the Mauritius : " Mademoiselle Caillon, aged 18, and very beautiful, was returning from France to Mauritius. M. Monten- dre was a passenger by the same vessel, and very naturally fell desperately in love. The vessel was wrecked near Port Louis, and most of the passengers and crew lost. The lovers were on the ship s fore castle, among others, with the seas breaking threat eningly around them ; others of the crew and passen gers were aft on the quarter-deck. Many were, it seems, trying to save themselves in one way or another, some of whom eventually succeeded. M. Montendre might have been among these latter, but he would not make the attempt unless Mademoiselle Caillon would accompany him. This the lady shrank from, as it Origin of Celebrated Books. 291 would necessitate the removal of her apparel. In vain the gentleman implored her to resort to it, as the only chance of escape her resolution remained unshaken. " Very well ! he ended sadly, 1 1 will die with you! And the green waves washed mercilessly over them, and the white, boiling foam covered them as with a winding-sheet. They were never seen more such was the death of Paul and Virginia. On the merest trifle often hinges the fortune of a whole future life; and had it not been for the acci dental suggestion of the beautiful and accomplished Countess of Dalkeith, Scott would certainly never have written his first metrical romance, and possibly never even dreamed of rising to high eminence as an author. She had heard the legend of the dwarf- demon (Gilpin Horner), and wished to have some verses written about him, probably thinking this would be an easy task; and her slightest wish was a law. But the dwarf was no very poetical personage. He had made his appearance unexpectedly, it is true, had behaved capriciously, like Number Nip, frightened both grown people and children, shown the notable inclination for mischief which is customary with devils, and at last vanished as unexpectedly as he came ; but all this was quite as well told in prose as in the best rhymes that ever were penned. In order to meet Lady Dalkeith s wishes, therefore, he must be introduced as an infernal agent in some plot of importance, which was yet to be devised. Thus arose the " Lay of the Last Minstrel," though 292 Mosaics. the original idea of Gilpin soon became subordinate, and was lost in the superstructure. Of the " Last Minstrel " he wrote at Lady Dalkeith s request, some opening stanzas, which he read to his friends, who, being of course, utterly unconscious of the eifects to which such a commencement might lead, re ceived them with great coldness. The rule holds good " Never show to fools or children a work half done." Although he at first destroyed his production, and seemed to abandon the idea, yet there is no doubt he conceived the plan for an entire poem ; for, when some friendly critics declared that the lines had dwelt on their remembrance, and that they wished he would go on with it, the work proceeded at the rate of about a canto in a week. Such rapidity was the natural effect of his vivid conception of character and situation, which carried him on without effort ; so that the work proved as entertaining to the author in composition as to his admirers in perusal. In the beautiful and quiet seclusion of Ashestiel, the " Lay of the Last Minstrel " was completed. It appeared in 1805. Rapidly it spread his reputation, and the most inspiring encomiums poured in from all quarters. The description of Melrose Abbey, and the ballad of Rosabelle, were imprinted on the memory of every one not utterly unsusceptible of the charms of romantic poetry ; and it was scarcely possible to visit any house where a copy of the expensive quarto, with its " rivulet of verse flowing through a meadow of mar gin," was not to be found on the drawing-room table. As a work of art, " Ivanhoe" is perhaps the first of Origin of Celebrated Books. 293 all Scott s efforts, whether in prose or in verse, nor have the strength and splendor of his imagination been displayed to higher advantage than in some of the scenes of this romance. The introduction of the charming Jewess and her father originated in a conver sation that Scott had with his friend Skene, during the severest season of his bodily sufferings, in the early part of 1819. "Mr. Skene," says that gentleman s wife, " sitting by his bedside, and trying to amuse him as well as he could, in the intervals of pain, happened to get on the subject of the Jews, as he had observed them when he spent some time in Germany in his youth. Their situation had naturally made a strong impression, for in those days they retained their own dress and manners entire, and were treated with con siderable austerity by their Christian neighbors, being still locked up at night in their OAvn quarters by great gates ; and Mr. Skene, partly in seriousness, but partly from the mere wish to turn Scott s mind at the moment upon something that might occupy and direct it, sug gested that a group of Jews would be an interesting feature, if he could contrive to bring them into his next novel." Upon the appearance of " Ivanhoe," he reminded Mr. Skene of this conversation, and said : " You will find that this book owes not a little to your German reminiscence." Jjlrg. >hww adds: "Dining with us one day not long before Ivanhoe was begun, something that was mentioned to Scott led him to describe the death of an advocate of his acquaint ance, a Mr. Elphinstone. It was, he said, no won der that it had left a vivid impression on his mind, for 294 Mosaics. it was the first sudden death he ever witnessed ; and he related it so as to make us all feel as if we had the scene passing before our eyes. In the death of the Templar in Ivanhoe, I recognized the very picture, I believe I might say the very words." Our last instance shall be that of the origin of one of the pleasantest of books, " The Pickwick Papers " of Dickens. We give the author s own account, prefixed to the new edition of his works. |jjr. Jlickeits says : " I was a young man of three-and-twenty when the present publishers, attracted by some pieces I was at that time writing in the Morning Chronicle newspaper (of which one series had lately been collected and pub lished in two volumes, illustrated by my esteemed friend, Mr. George Cruikshank), waited upon me to propose a something that should be published in shil ling numbers then only known to me, or I believe to anybody else, by a dim recollection of certain inter minable novels in that form which used to be carried about the country by peddlers, and over some of which I remember to have shed innumerable tears before I had served my apprenticeship to Life. " When I opened my door in Furnival s Inn to the managing partner who represented the firm, I recog nized in him the person from whose hands I had bought, two or three years previously, and whom I had never seen before or since, my first copy of the magazine in which my first effusion dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet street appeared in all the glory of print ; on Origin of Celebrated Books. 295 which memorable occasion how well I recollect it ! I walked down to Westminster Hall and turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be seen there. I told my visitor of the coincidence, which we both hailed as a good omen, and so fell to business. " The idea propounded to me was that the monthly something should be a vehicle for certain plates to be executed by Mr. Seymour ; and there was a notion, either on the part of that admirable, humorous artist, or of my visitor (I forget which), that a Nimrod Club, the members of which were to go out shooting, fishing, and so forth, and getting themselves into diffi culties through their want of dexterity, would be the best means of introducing these. I objected, on con sideration that, although born and partly bred in the country, I was no great sportsman, except in regard of all kinds of locomotion ; that the idea was not novel, and had been already much used; that it would be infinitely better for the plates to arise naturally out of the text ; and that I should like to take my own way, with a freer range of English scenes and people, and was afraid I should ultimately do so in any case, what ever course I might prescribe to myself at starting. My views being deferred to, I thought of Mr. Pick wick, and wrote the first number, from the proof-sheets of which Mr. Seymour made his drawing of the Club, and that happy portrait of its founder by which he is always recognized, and which may be said to have made him a reality. I connected Mr. Pickwick with a 296 Mosaics. club because of the original suggestion, and I put in Mr. Winkle expressly for the use of Mr. Seymour. We started with a number of twenty-four pages instead of thirty-two, and four illustrations in lieu of a couple. Mr. Seymour s sudden and lamented death before the second number was published, brought about a quick decision upon a point already in agita tion ; the number became one of thirty-two pages, with two illustrations, and remained so to the end. My friends told me it was a low, cheap form of publica tion, by which I should ruin all my rising hopes ; and how right my friends turned out to be everybody now knows. " Boz, my signature in the Morning Chronicle, appended to the monthly cover of this book, and retained long afterward, was the nickname of a pet child, a younger brother, whom I had dubbed Moses, in honor of the Vicar of Wakefield, which, being facetiously pronounced through the nose, became Bozes, and being shortened became Boz. Boz was a very familiar household word to me long before I was an author, and so I came to adopt it." The following incident will show how universally these inimitable sketches are appreciated. Mr. Davy, who accompanied Colonel Cheney up the Euphrates, was for a time in the service of Mehemet Ali Pacha. Pickwick happening to reach Davy while he was at Damascus, he read a part of it to the Pacha, who was so delighted with it, that Davy was, on one occasion, called up in the middle of the night to finish the reading of the chapter in which he and the Pacha Origin of Celebrated Books. 297 had been interrupted. Mr. Davy read, in Egypt, upon another occasion, some passages from these unrivalled " Papers " to a blind Englishman, who was in such ecstasy with what he heard, that he exclaimed he was almost thankful he could not see he was in a foreign country ; for that while he listened, he felt completely as though he were again in England. NIGHT AND DAY. Jfiffht, sable goddess ! from her ebon throne, In rayless majesty, now sir etches forth Her leaden sceptre o er a slumbering world ; Silence, how dead ! and darkness, how profound ! 2for eye nor listening ear an object finds ; Creation sleeps. Tis as the general pulse Of life stood still, and nature made a pause An awful pause prophetic of her end. YOUNG. BY a poetical metaphor, Night is said to be Nature in mourning for the loss of the sun ! Yet in her seeming sadness, how grateful to the wearied sons of toil, is her stillness and repose ! "Night is the time for rest- How sweet when labors close, To gather round an aching breast The curtain of repose : Stretch the tired limbs and lay the head Upon our own delightful bed." " The sweet oblivious antidote" to all our sorrows and trials, is also the great necessity of our nature, superseding every other want. Silent and solemn night, thou art also the almoner of blessings to the poor and afflicted, for not only dost thou bring a truce to toil Night and Day. 299 and labor, but thou dost still the cry for food of the neglected children of poverty. Night gentle, sooth ing, refreshing night the earthly paradise of slave, the soothing balm of the care-worn and suffering, the nurse of social endearments, of poetry and devotion how the great panting heart of humanity yearns for thy sweet return ! Under thy benign and peaceful reign, the tumultuous conflicts of life, with its strife of tongues, its pride and avarice, its baubles and phan toms, its envy and ambitions, alike cease. All life s fretting cares, its doubts and perplexities, and its count less contending emotions are for a son son hushed into silence and repose. How beneficent i this ordinance of the Divine Providence: alike grates to peasant and to prince, to the rude as well as to the * . ^ned : to the lower creation as well as to its lord. " Oh, night! I love thee, as a weary child Loves the maternal breast on which it leans ! Day hath its golden pomp its bustling scenes ; But richer gifts are thine the turmoil wild Of a proud heart thy low, sad voice hath stilled, Until its throb is gentler than the swell Of a light billow and its chamber filled With cloudless light, with calm unspeakable ; A strange, mysterious power belongs to thee, To morning, noon, and twilight-time unknown." * Not only is night ever welcome as affording a respite to the wearied activities of the day thus fitting us, by its recuperative influences, for the duties of the morrow ; it is also the time of social intercourse, when * Hosmer. 300 Mosaics. the endearments of home, with its amenities and lov ing interests, atone for the rude asperities of the world. Here the rivalries of ambition and the fierce contests for power and preference are unknown all is serenity, gentleness and peace the storms of life are lulled into a calm. Home is the citadel of the heart its loved retreat and when sanctified by the pure harmonies of love and devotion, our " paradise regained." " Dear night ! This world s defeat ; The stop to busy fools care s check and curb, The day of spirits and the soul s retreat, Which none disturb." * Night, especially, is the time for prayer sanctified to this use by the Great Founder of our faith. "This sacred shade and solitude, what is it? T is the felt presence of the Deity. Darkness has divinity for me ; It strikes thought inward ; it drives back the soul, To settle on herself, our point supreme ! There lies our theatre there sits our judge. Night is the good man s friend, and guardian too ; It no less rescues virtue, than inspires." We read that the Patriarch of old went forth to meditate at eventide and although his thoughts have not been chronicled, for our perusal, we may safely conjecture that they were of a devotional kind. Doubt less his emotions of gratitude were excited by a sense of the fitness and adaptation, not to say physical neces sity to our very existence, which exists for this regular * Vaughan. Night and Day. 301 alternation of day and night since its interruption would most unquestionably prove fatal. What could we know of the countless beauties of creation did not the king of day reveal to us the enchanted vision ? Then the " garish eye of day," with all its pomp and splendor, passes into eclipse, in order that the glories of the stellar firmament may ravish our gaze the more. " Look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patius of bright gold !" What silent eloquence is there in the splendors of the midnight heavens ! Who can gaze upon them in the lone stillness without deep emotions of solemn awe? " The sacred hour of night, When eloquent darkness opens to the eye The pure, the undying and the infinite ; The heaven of heavens unveiled, reveals on high The star-roofed temple of eternity ; There, where in floating argentry are hung The living wilderness of galaxy, O er the black void like foam from ocean flung : That solemn sea of air whose silence hath a tongue."* There is something strangely beautiful in the con templation of night when the smiling stars seem to do homage to their pale-faced queen, and the clouds float silently through the tranquil sky, and the wind speaks in soft whispers, as if fearful of waking the sleepers." Such is the sweet repose of a peaceful con science. But when the hues of evening slant dimly away, * Reade. 302 Mosaics. when the cheerless curtains of darkness are drawn, when aerial shadows loom up and flit along the vaulted arch, "like grim ghosts trailing blackness through the heav ens" such is the fearful shadow that hangs over the broken slumber of a soul in which there is no peace." " How slowly rolls the night along," is the sad re frain of the child of suffering, albeit he may mingle his moanings with " songs in the night" for he, too, has retreated from the world of sense, holding " collo quy sublime" with the spirit-world. To one of unfal tering faith in Him who is " the resurrection and the O life," even the night of death is divested of its gloom. "Night is one of the greatest blessings men enjoy. We have many reasons to thank God for it. Yet night is to many a gloomy season. There is the pestilence that walketh in darkness there is the terror by night there is the terror of robbers and fell disease, with all those fears that the timorous know, when they have no light wherewith to discern objects. It is then they fancy that spiritual creatures walk the earth ; though, if they knew rightly, they would find it to be true that " Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, Unseen, both when we sleep, and when we wake : and that at all times they are round about us not more by night than by day. Night is the season of terror and alarm to most men. Yet even night hath its songs. Have you never stood by the sea-side at night, and heard the pebbles sing, and the waves chant God s glories? Night hath its song. "We need not Night and Day. 303 much poetry in our spirit to catch its melody, and hear the spheres as they chant praises which are loud to the heart, though they be silent to the ear the praises of the mighty God, who bears up the unpillared arch of heaven, and moves the stars in their courses ..... Man, too, like the great world, has his night. Any fool can sing in the day. When the cup is full, man draws inspiration from it ; when wealth rolls in abun dance around him, any man can sing to the praise of a God who gives a plenteous harvest, and sends home a loaded argosy. It is easy enough for an seolian harp to whisper music when the winds blow the difficulty is for music to come when no wind bloweth. It is easy to sing when we can read the notes by daylight, but the skillful singer is he who can sing when there is not a ray of light to read by when he has no means of reading, save from the inward book of his own living spirit, whence notes of gratitude pour out in notes of praise." * The night which envelops half the world with the mantle of darkness, like a funeral pall, is the emblem of death. Said " In her starry shade Of dim, and solitary loneliness, I learned the language of another world." This metaphor has been beautifully described in one of the finest sonnets in our language ; and, in which, by a sudden revelation, it has the highest effect of wit ; thus a usually dark and discouraging theme is turned * Spurgeon. 304: Mosaics. into the highest exultation. Its author is the late lanco Wjik "Mysterious night! when the first man but knew Thee by report, unseen, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue ? Yet neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came, And lo ! creation wideu d on his view. Who could have thought what darkness lay conceal d Within thy beams, Sun ? or who could find, While fly, and leaf, and insect stood reveal d, That to such endless orbs thou mak st us blind ? Weak man ! why, to shun death, this anxious strife ? If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ?" The gradual fading away of the shades of night into the dawn of day, is also typical of the spirit- world : thus from the darkness of death the Christian emerges into the light of life. Who can gaze without feelings of rapture, as he muses on those glittering orbs that bespangle the arch of heaven, and not anticipate the beatitudes of a day of glory which shall know no night ? What spirit, wearied with the toils and sorrows of earth, and longing to be emancipated from a body of sin and death, does not desire to catch a glimpse of the beatific vision of the patriarch Jacob ? The thought has been set to a majestic measure by a modern poet.* " Ah ! many a time we look on starlit nights Up to the sky as Jacob did of old, Look longing up to the eternal lights, To spell their lines in gold. * Rev. W. Alexander. Night and Day. 305 " But never more, as to the Hebrew boy, Each on his way the angels walk abroad ; And never more we hear, with awful joy, The audible voice of God. "Yet, to pure eyes the ladder still is set, And angel visitants still come and go, Many bright messengers are moving yet From the dark world below. " Thoughts, that are red-cross d Faith s outspreading win^s Prayers of the Church, are keeping time and tryst- Heart-wishes, making bees-like murmurings, Their flower the Eucharist. "Spirits elect, through suffering render d meet For those high mansions from the nursery door Bright babes that climb up with their clay-cold feet, Unto the golden door. " These are the messengers, forever wending From earth to heaven, that faith alone can scan ; These are the angels of our God, ascending Upon the son of Man." " In this world why should we be sad because life is not an unbroken, unclouded day of sunshine ? Night has its uses ; it prepares us to enjoy the choral hymn of re-awakening nature ; it wakes into life the bright stars, which pale before the streaking light of day. "Why should we feint and pine in the night of adversity? It brings into exercise graces which do not appear in the sunshine of prosperity. It strengthens right principles in a way that prosperity never can. It shows what we really are, which prosperity cannot do. 306 Mosaics. Are we in heaviness for a season, there is a benevolent reason for it it is to benefit us, or prepare us for some important service in the cause of religion and virtue." The cold insensibility of the worldly-minded to all the gentleness of charity, is thawed into tenderness by the subduing influence of sorrow the vital currents of our better nature begin to flow afresh, and thus our afflictions become benefactions. Hallowed influences, accompanying afflictions, temper our moral nature, and enrich it with purified affections and noble aspirations. They fertilize our spiritual being, as vernal showers refresh and vitalize the sun-scorched soil. " So many great Illustrious spirits have conversed with woe, Have in her school been taught, as are enough To consecrate distress and make ambition Even wish the frown, beyond the smile of fortune.* " Consider that the bees, when they make their honey, do live upon a bitter provision ; and that we, in like manner, can never perform actions of greater meekness and patience, nor better compose the honey of true virtues, than while we eat the bread of bitter ness and live amongst afflictions. And as the honey which is gathered from thyme (a little bitter herb) is the best of all, so the virtue which is exercised in the bitterness of base and most abject tribulations is the most excellent of all."f " A weak mind sinks under prosperity as well as * Thomson. t De Sales. Night and Day. 307 under adversity; a strong and deep mind has two highest tides when the .moon is at the full, and w r hen there is no moon." According to the conceit of the classic poets " The night is mother of the day ;" thus freshened into life and beauty, the new-born light bursts upon our waking sense. " Night s silver-axled car is borne Down the deep pavement of the skies, "When the bold voices of the morn Bid the broad earth arise, The starry hosts in sunshine melt, Orion of the lustrous belt Prostrate in beauty lies, And the moist-beani d Pleiades Plunge in the stormy-bosom d seas." gnm, in his " Siege of Corinth," has depicted the advent of day in all the glowing tints and gladdening beams of Aurora : " Night wanes the vapors round the mountains curl d, Melt into morn, and light awakes the world, And mighty nature bounds as from her birth; The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth ; Flowers in the valley, splendor in the beam ; Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream !" All are familiar with the beautiful Apostrophe to Morn, by the poet of " The Seasons :" " When from the opening chambers of the east The morning springs, in thousand liveries drest, 308 Mosaics. The early larks their morning tribute pay, And, in shrill notes, salute the blooming day. Refreshed fields with pearly dew do shine, And tender blades their tops incline, Their painted leaves the unblown flowers expand, And with their odorous breath perfume the land." In the following glowing picture, the majestic march of language has hardly ever been excelled : "It was a mild, serene, midsummer s night the sky was without a cloud the winds were whist. The moon, then in the last quarter, had just risen, and the stars shone with a spectral lustre but little affected by her presence. Jupiter, two hours high, was the herald of the day; the Pleiades just above the horizon shed their sweet influence in the east ; Lyra sparkled near the zenith ; Andromeda veiled her newly discovered glo ries from the naked eye in the south ; the steady pointers far beneath the pole, looked meekly up from the depths of the north to their sovereign. " The timid approach of twilight became more per ceptible ; the intense blue of the sky began to soften, the smaller stars, like little children, went first to rest ; the sister beams of the Pleiades soon melted together ; but the bright constellations of the west and north remained unchanged. Steadily the wondrous trans figuration went on. Hands of angels hidden from mortal eyes shifted the scenery of the heavens ; the glories of night dissolved into the glories of the dawn. The blue sky now turned more softly grey ; the great watch stars shut up their holy eyes ; the east began to kindle. Faint streaks of purple soon blushed along the Night and Day. 309 sky; the whole celestial concave was filled with the inflowing tides of the morning light, which came pour ing down from above in one great ocean of radiance ; till "at length, as we reached the blue hills, a flash of purple fire blazed out from above the horizon, and turned the dewy tear-drops of flower and leaf into rubies and diamonds. In a few seconds, the everlast ing gates of the morning were thrown wide open, and the lord of day, arrayed in glories too severe for the gaze of man, began his course." * Well may the poet exclaim : " Falsely luxurious, will not man awake, And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy The cool, the fragrant, and the silent morn, To meditation due and sacred song ?" Shall all nature hold jubilee, and be vocal with her choral anthem, and man alone forget his orisons of praise to the " God of the Universe ?" Rather will he not chant the solemn cadences of the poet, as he greets the smiling morn : " These are thy glorious works, Parent of Good! Almighty, Thine this universal frame. Thus wondrous fair, Thyself how wondrous then ! To us invisible or dimly seen, in these Thy lowest works, yet these declare Thy wisdom beyond thought, and power divine." Few, indeed, are found among the denizens of cities, who know anything about the glories of the dawn of day. With most persons, morning is not a new issuing * Everett. 310 Mosaics. of light, a ne\\ r waking up of all that has life, from a sort of temporary death ; it is merely a part of the domestic day, to be devoted to the mechanical duties of life. The first streak of light, the earliest purpling of the east, which the lark springs up to greet, and the deeper and deeper coloring into orange and red, until at length the " glorious sun is seen, regent of the day ;" this they never enjoy, for they never see it. "I have never thought," once remarked gamel fcbster, "that Adam had much the advantage of us, from having seen the world while it was new. The manifestations of the power of God, like his mercies, are new every morning, and fresh every moment. We see as fine risings of the sun as ever Adam saw ; and its risings are as much a miracle now, as they were in his day and I think, a good deal more, because it is now a part of the miracle, that for thousands and thousands of years he has come to his appointed time, without the variation of a millionth part of a second. Adam could not tell how this might be. I know the morning I am acquainted with it, and I love it. I love it, fresh and sweet as it is a daily new creation, breaking forth and calling all that have life and breath and being to new adoration, new enjoyments and new gratitude." Who would not, then, " shake off dull sloth," and Avith feg; obey " The breezy call of incense-breathing morn ?" Sfterm observes " there is no spectacle in nature more grand and beautiful than the rising sun : before which the most magnificent dress that human art can prepare. Night and Day. 311 fades away, and is as nothing. At first the east, decked in the purple of aurora, announces the approach of the great luminary. The sky then gradually assumes the tints of the rose, and soon flames with a fiery brilliancy : then the rays of light piercing the clouds, the whole horizon becomes luminous, and the sun opens upon us in gorgeous magnificence and splendor. As respon sive to his summons, the rejoicing earth with all created things hails his approach with nature s many-voiced music, and her rich garniture of floral beauty : while the breath of the sweet hawthorn and a thousand deli cious odors from fairest flowers, impart fragrant per fume to the pure fresh morning breeze." The first sunbeams dart from behind the mountain peak, light ing up the valleys, the dewdrops upon the flowers gleam with the lustre of pearls, and the landscape glows with variegated beauty : till at length, the sun s disk, encircled in dazzling glory, gains the mid heaven, and no eye can sustain his peerless brilliancy. " When thou seest the variegated and brilliant hues of the heavens, the lustre of the countless stars, and the light reflected from a thousand beauteous objects, ask thy self whence all these proceed. Who formed the im mense vault of heaven ? who placed in the firmament those exhaustless fires, those vast constellations of worlds, whose rays pierce through such inconceivable depths of space ? the everlasting God, at whose fiat creation arose at first, fair and beautiful ; whose wis dom still directs it whose grace and mercy still pre side for the felicity of all." * It is * Sturm. 312 Mosaics. " By God s right hand, triumphant in the might That out of darkness doth create the light ; Bringeth good out of evil, and doth make All things work kindly for his children s sake, And turneth wrong and sin to shameful flight." "As in the light of cultivated reason, you look abroad and see a wealth of beauty, a profusion of goodness in the work of Him who has strewn flowers in the wild erness, and painted the bird, and enamelled the insect, in tire simplicity and universality of his laws you can read this lesson. An uneducated man dreams not of the common sunlight which now in its splendor floods the firmament and the landscape : he cannot compre hend how much of the loveliness of the world results from the composite character of light, and from the reflecting propensities of most physical bodies. If, in stead of red, yellow and blue, which the analysis of the prism and experiments of absorption have shown to be its constituents, it had been homogeneous, simple white, how changed would all have been ! The growing corn and the ripe harvest, the blossom and the fruit, the fresh greenness of spring, and the autumn s robe of many colors, the hues of the violet, the lily and the rose, the silvery foam of the rivulet, the emerald of the river, and the purple of the ocean, would have been alike unknown. The rainbow would have been but a pale streak in the grey sky, and dull vapors would have canopied the sun instead of the clouds, which in the dyes of flaming brilliancy, curtain his rising up and going down. Nay, there would have been no distinc tion between the blood of children, the flush of health, Night and Day. 313 the paleness of decay, the hectic of disease and the lividness of death. There would have been an unva ried, unmeaning, leaden hue, where we now see the changing and expressive countenance, the tinted earth and gorgeous firmament." " Hail, holy Light ! offspring of Heaven first born, Or of the eternal co-eternal beam, May I express thee unblamed ? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light, Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate ! Before the sun Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle didst invest The rising world of waters dark and deep Won from the void and formless Infinite !" What a mystery is light ! its combination of different rays the red, the orange, the yellow, the green, the blue, the indigo and the violet ! This ar rangement of colors is seen in harmonious assemblage in the rainbow, by the rays of light from the great luminary falling upon drops of rain in a shower ; and also through the crystal hence the term prismatic colors. Light, as we receive it from the sun, appears to the senses as a simple element : and, Judging from our early impressions we might consider the peculiar colors of bodies as inherent in those bodies ; but we are enabled to trace the immediate cause of the colors of bodies, whether permanent or transient, by the analy sis of light furnished by the well known experiments of the glass prism. The sun s light, for instance, may 14 314 Mosaics. be decomposed into its homogeneous constituent rays by refraction through a transparent prism : conversely, it may be recompounded into light similar to the origi nal, merely by making the rays, thus separated, by another refraction to occupy the same place. This may be effected by placing the prism of exactly similar material and form to that already used, with its refrac ting angle turned in a direction opposite to that of the former, so that the near faces of both prisms may be parallel ; for the rays entering the second prism are in the same condition as if we supposed their direction inverted, that they may repass through the first ; and therefore, they emerge in a similar compound ray with the original. Modern science has revealed much in regard to the nature and properties of light. Faraday has recently made a ray of polarized light rotate under the influence of an electric current. There are instances in which light exerts a direct chemical agency without its being referable to the heat which usually accompanies it when intense. Thus, if a mixture of equal volumes of chlorine and hydrogen gases be kept in the dark, no combination takes place between them; but in the light of day they unite slowly, and form hydrochloric acid gas ; while if ex posed to the direct solar rays, the combination occurs instantaneously, and with loud explosion. If colorless nitric acid be exposed to the sun s rays, it becomes yellow, and afterwards red. So of chloride of silver as long as it is kept from the light, even though it may be exposed to heat, it remains perfectly colorless ; but the sun s rays, and even diffused daylight, by their pe- Night and Day. 315 culiar action, blacken it speedily. Chemistry furnishes many similar experiments. Light has been defined that ethereal agent, of the presence of which we are informed by the sensibility of the visual organs. Some maintain that it is com posed of material particles, projected in all directions from luminous bodies in an inconceivably rapid succes sion : but from the more recent investigations of sci ence, it is believed that all the phenomena of light depend on the undulations of a highly attenuated fluid or ether, diffused through space, which, while at rest, is not appreciable by our senses, but when acted on by luminous bodies, is thrown into a succession of waves. Leaving the scientific aspect of light, we might ask what would become of us were its gladdening beams forever withdrawn from our world? We leave the reader s imagination to fill up the dark picture. How full of significance is the radiant dawn of day how expressively does it typify the early budding of infancy its virgin freshness, purity and beauty. So, also, the noontide of life is imaged by the heat of the mid-day sun. As the brilliant hues of the morning become absorbed by the more intense and uniform glare of his meridian beams so the toilers after wealth and fame are hurried into the fierce battle of life : also, anon the sun sinks to the western wave, and man to his quick grave. Life s busy scene is but a lengthened day ; or, as Sjjaksppeaix says : " Our little life is rounded by a sleep." "Between two worlds life hovers like a star, Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon s verge." 316 Mosaics. ^ir Wlliam Cemple wisely said : " When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and best, but like a fro- ward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet, till it falls asleep, and then the care is over. We bring into the world with us a poor, needy, uncertain life, short at the longest, and unquiet at the best. All the imaginations of the witty and the wise have been perpetually busy to find out the ways how to revive it with pleasures, or to relieve it with diversions ; how to compose it with ease, and settle it with safety ; that our poor, mortal lives should pass the easier and happier for that little time we possess them, or else end the better when we lose them." Life is not all storm and tempest, neither is it all sunshine and peace ; it is a compound of both. As in nature we sometimes see the elements in fierce, tumultuous strife, and anon the landscape again all serenely reposing in the happy sunshine ; so is it with human life. Who has not shared the bitter experience when suffering from either mental or physical depression, that the atmosphere of grief can convert the gladness of sum mer sunlight into the night-shade of sorrow? But there is a divine alchemy which transmutes all the bit terness of earthly sorrow into a joy that is "unspeak able and full of glory," when we look not at the things which are temporal, but at those which are eternal. Day draws to its decline, and pensive evening, with its charmed and mysterious twilight, succeeds that time so loved of poet, painter, and philosopher. The lament ed (Hljarloife route has penned some expressive lines on this musing hour of eventide, which we subjoin : Night and Day. 317 " The human heart has hidden treasures In secret kept, in silence sealed ; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed. And days may pass in dull confusion, And nights in noisy routs may fly, While, lost in fame s or wealth s illusion, The memory of the past may die. " But there are hours of lonely musing, Such as in evening silence come, When soft as birds their pinions closing, The heart s best feelings gather home. Then, in our souls there seems to languish A tender grief that is not woe ; And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish, Now cause some gentle tears to flow. " And feelings once as strong as passions, Float softly back a faded dream ; Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations The taste of others sufferings seem; Oh ! when the heart is freshly bleeding, How it longs for that time to be, When through the mists of years receding, Its woes but live in reverie ! And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer, On evening shades and loneliness, And while the sky grows dim and dimmer, Heed no unmeasured woe s distress Only a deeper impress given By lonely hour and darkened room, To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven, Seeking a life and world to come." There are two periods in the life of man in TJSIVBUS: 318 Mosaics. which the evening hour is peculiarly interesting in youth and old age. In youth we love it for its mellow moonlight, its million stars, its then rich and soothing shades, its still serenity ; amid these we can commune with our loves, or twine the wreaths of friends, while there is none to bear us witness but the heavens and the spirits that hold thoir endless Sab bath there or look into the bosom of creation, and look and listen till we can almost see and hoar the waving wings and melting songs of other worlds. To youth the evening is delightful. It accords with the flow of his light spirits, the fervor of his fancy, and the softness of his heart. Evening is also the delight of virtuous age ; it affords hours of undisturbed contemplation ; it seems an emblem of the calm and tranquil close of busy life ; serene, placid, and mild, the impress of its great Creator stamped upon it, it spreads its quiet wings over the grave, and seems to promise that all shall be peace beyond it. Eventide is also the pleasant time for silent study or social reading ; the brief but beautiful season sacred to bodily repose and mental refreshment. The expres sive lines of JTongfellotir, addressed to a gifted poetess, are susceptible of application to all who wisely "make mer chandise of time," by bartering it for intellectual wealth : "Oh, precious evenings! all too swiftly sped! Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages, And giving tongues unto the silent dead! How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read, Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages Night and Day. 319 Of the great poet who foreruns the ages, Anticipating all that shall be said! Oh, happy reader ! having for thy text The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have caught The rarest essence of all human thought!" It is worthy of note that the Greek poets gave to night that beautiful name Euphrone indicating the season of good feeling the hour of hope, of calm, yet joyous contemplation. It is true, the inspired descrip tion of the heavenly state says, " There shall be no night there." But in our present imperfect condition of being, the idea of the highest earthly bliss would be marred by its absence from the picture. As yet we cannot dispense with the shade. With the following beautiful lines, we leave the reader to the inspirations of this stilly hour, to its sweet visions, its vigils, and its vespers : " Yon pale cloud Is tinting with the sunset s hectic flush, So is the distant tor now glory-browed ; And now a solemn hush Steals from the skies adown the mountain-side ; Tis the deep stillness of the eventide. " The white moon Grows golden in the grey dome of the sky ; Brighter she climbs the dark ning steep, and soon Will lighten radiantly. Now in the shifting purple hues of even Earth, air, and sea, seem blending into heaven. " The tall trees Throw now no shades, for all is dusk around ; The star is splendid o er the seas, the breeze 320 Mosaics. Is dead with every sound But the sweet streams. Myriads of loving eyes Yearn on the earth from out the blending skies. " The brown tint Has faded into gloom on the sharp crest Of the far mountain. Only starlight s glint, On the stream s heaving breast. The lark and bee are quiet the warm glow Has left the cloud and the hill s frowning brow. " Heavy dews Pearl the soft eyelids of night-cradled flowers, That opening, smile but when the warm sun woos In daylight s golden hours. Sadness comes on me with the twilight grey, And with the day my rhyme is laid away." * * Dublin Univ. Mag. FAME. Though fame is smoke, Its fumes are frankincense to human thoughts. BYRON. being asked what constituted the purest of human pleasures, replied to do an act of charity in secret, and afterwards to have it discovered. Such an instance seems to invest fame with something of tangibility. The quintessence of Fame, according to the estimate of a modern author, consists in the loving admiration of one s own family circle ; yet in the popular acceptation, such a limitation is too contracted for the vaulting ambition of the major ity of mankind. It is "Fame s loud clarion that most bewitches men; popular applause ! what heart of man Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms ?" This love of human applause exhibits itself in Pro- toean forms ; it enters into all conditions of society, the rude and the refined, the rich and the poor, the young and the old. Indeed, it is seen to bud forth with the blossoms of childhood for even prattling infancy 14* 322 Mosaics. delights to bask in the sunshine of a mother s smile ; it ripens with the maturity of life, and acquires a sturdy- growth with age, and is not unfrequently the master- passion to the very close of life. Limited by no geo graphical boundaries, it rules with potent sway men of every clime and color, the red men of our forests, the sable sons of Africa, and the tawny race of the " celes tials," as well as the polished Caucasian. It is sometimes the incentive to the noblest virtues ; it is also the occasion of the most stupendous crimes. Its history is coeval with the birth of man, stretching over the long centuries of Time ; nor will its chronicles be completed till the records of the past, the present, and the future shall themselves pass away like the " baseless fabric of a vision." Fame has been denned " the prevailing desire among men to assert a powerful ascendency over the attention of mankind." But what is fame really worth to the few who not only live for it, but gain it ? In the strife to attain the fancied bauble, a man often perils his interests in the life to come ; for if the passion obtain the mastery over him, he will sacrifice every other consideration for its attainment. The record of most historic characters is, it must be admitted, rather that of vices, than virtues. What, moreover, is all the laudation of the living worth to the inanimate body in the tomb ? Fame, indeed, has been compared to " an undertaker, who pays but little atten tion to the living, but bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals, follows them to the grave, and then bequeathes to them a fulsome epitaph." * Cjjarles * Colton. Fame. 323 JTamtr, when a child, was once reading the memorials of the dead in a churchyard, in company with his sis ter, when he said " Mary, where are all the naughty people buried ?" Hljahsjjore says, " If a man do not erect his own tomb before he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps." " Can storied urn, or animated bust Back to its mansions call the fleeting breath ? Can honor s voice provoke the silent dust Or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death ?" The ingenious author of the "Tin Trumpet," describes ambition or thirst for fame, as " a mental dropsy, which keeps continually swelling and increasing, until it kills its victim. Ambition is often overtaken by calamity, because it is not aware of its pursuer, and never looks behind. Deeming naught done, while aught remains to do, it is necessarily restless, unable to bear any thing above it ; discontent must be its inevitable por tion ; for even if the pinnacle of worldly power be gained, its occupant will sigh, like Alexander, for another globe to conquer. Every day that brings us some new advancement or success, brings us also a day nearer to death, embittering the reflection, that the more we have gained, the more we have to relinquish. Aspiring to nothing but humility, the wise man will make it the height of his ambition to be unambitious. As he cannot eifect all that he wishes, he will only wish for that which he can effect." Sterne piquantly remarks that " the way to Fame is like the way to 324: Mosaics. Heaven through much tribulation." But the ques tion returns to us, " What is fame ? the meanest have their day ; The greatest can but blaze and pass away !" There is such a thing as a virtuous fame, and this should not be deprecated. A refined and virtuous ambition is, perhaps, of all the passions of which our humanity is susceptible, the most imposing and seduc tive. With the true gentleness of the poet, Cofekg writes: "I love and commend a true, good fame, because it is the shadow of virtue not that it doth any good to the body which it accompanies but it is an efficacious shadow, and, like that of St. Peter, cures the diseases of others." Surveying our subject in all its modified forms and phases, from the thirst of glory to the dread of bliame, we may at least, safely affirm of it, that its authority is the most powerful and uni versal of all human passions. This is illustrated by S&ittrtrfortt : " It seems," he observes, " like some resist less conqueror, to spare neither age, nor sex, nor con dition, and, taking ten thousand shapes, insinuates itself under the most specious pretexts ; and sheltering itself, when necessary, under the most artful disguises, it winds its way in secret, and mixes in all we think, and speak, and do. It is, in some instances, the determined and declared pursuit ; but where this is not the case, it is not seldom the grand spring of action, and in the beauty, and the author, no less than in the soldier, it is often the master-passion of the soul." This love of glory impels to extraordinary efforts to great under- Fame. 325 takings : it has so much of grandeur in success, and is " A love so strong, "We think no dangers great, no labors long By which we hope our being to extend, And to remotest times in glory to descend." Ctrcker, in his "Light of Nature," discusses the differ ent effects of a love of excelling and of excellence. If he is correct in his reasoning, and he usually is "the love of excelling, although the common motive of action, does not influence the noblest of minds is only a temporary motive, and generates bad passion ; but the love of excellence is an incentive of a higher order a permanent motive, and induces virtuous feel ings." In the same vein gibbisoit remarks that "the very desire of fame is looked upon as a meanness and imperfection in the greatest character. A solid and substantial greatness of soul looks down with a gener ous neglect on the censures and applauses of the mul titude, and places a man beyond the little noise and strife of tongues. Accordingly we find in ourselves a secret awe and veneration for the character of one who moves above us in a regular and illustrious course of virtue, without any regard to our good or ill opinion of him, to our reproaches or commendations : but, on the contrary, it is usual for us, when we would take off from the fame and reputation of an action, to ascribe it to vain-glory, and a desire of fame in the actor." " True glory" we cite the words of |)Img " consists in doing what deserves to be written in writing what deserves to be read ; and in so living as to make the world happier and better for our living in it." 326 Mosaics. Born for immortality, all the yearnings and tenden cies which thrill through the framework of our spirit ual organism, toil towards this high destiny. The influence of its intellectual creations, and its moral off spring may flame along its pathway through life and so incorporate itself with the mass of human mind, that the light of its reflected glow will assist to illume the world for generations to come. A noble ambition for excellence, is the motive power of the soul ; and lies at the foundation of all that is heroic, and good and great. " To insure a worthy fame, rare intellectual gifts are not absolutely essential, nor is elevated station neces sary; no if this germ of our immortality which burns in every human bosom, be but fostered, each one may rear for himself an imperishable monument of virtues that will command the esteem of mankind. It is one among the loftiest instincts of our nature to admire and love that which is exalted and great. The beauty of the landscape, the magnificence of the river and the vastness of the sea, kindle in the mind elevated and pleasurable emotions. But, amid all that is great and glowing in the outspread gorgeousness of the universe, there is no object which awakens such thrilling and unearthly joy within us, as a human mind, girded with strength and robed with the majesty of breathing thought. Its ethereal glow is imparted and transfused through our being, until a wild ecstasy dances along every fibre of our spiritual framework, and willing or unwilling, commands our homage. There is beauty in the winged cloud, and in the circling wave there is Fame. 327 a glory in the quiet stars, and in the flaming firmament there is a power in those utterances which come from the awful shrines of nature there is a grandeur in the storm-tossed ocean ; but there is a brighter .beauty, a more ravishing glory, a more subduing power, and a sublimer grandeur thrown around a great intellect laboring with a theme of corresponding dignity." * " Notwithstanding the moral desolation that over shadows our fallen world, there are yet a select few, whose fragrant fires irradiate its darkness: and we thank God for it. Master-spirits who walk about our world as giants wrapped in mantles of light and glory poets, who stand aloft like Colossi mightier than we, seeming to be descended from celestial spheres : philosophers who interpret the arcana of science; and philanthropists on their missions of mercy to the sor rowing, neglected children of want and woe." f A halo of celestial glory seems to encircle their brows serene, as we gaze upon their altitude sublime, and hail them with reverence and love, as the nobles of our race the hostages of our better state of being. The acts and monuments of a Howard, a Luther, a Shakspeare, a Milton and a Newton, are more enduring than the mausoleum more fragrant than the perfumed breath of spring. These are the true kings and priests of earth the magnates of mankind ; and a lasting apo theosis to their memories is the tribute we owe to their excellence and worth. But besides these "monarchs of the mind" what a galaxy of brilliant names shed a glory, even on the temple of Fame itself. They may * Rev. Mr. Unspack. t Spurgeon. 328 Mosaics. be stars of lesser magnitude, but they also serve to mitigate our moral darkness by their radiant virtues. Need we pronounce their sainted names they are as familiar as household words who does not revere such men of olden time as Bunyan, Jeremy Taylor, Luther, Barrow, Herbert and Hall, down to the last of the illustrious succession, Chalmers, the apostle of our own times. These worthies we regard in some sense, as the oracles of the temple of Truth. They have taught us how to live, and how to die both by precept and ex ample. They have bequeathed to us a rich revenue of sacred learning ; and shall we not embalm their memo ries in our heart of hearts, as a legacy from heaven ? Could it be suspected of any of these exemplary men, that they were incited to their high emprise, by any love of mere human applause they lived rather, for the luxury of doing good. JSir Jjnlfow Button has beautifully expressed it in a single couplet : " As flowers which night, when day is o er, perfume, Breathes the sweet memory from a good man s tomb." " Good men are the stars " we cite the words of Ben Jonson "the planets of the age wherein they live, and illustrate the times. God did never let them be wanting to the world ; as Abel for an example of innocency Enoch for purity Noah of trust in God s mercies Abraham of faith, and so of the rest." The moral influence upon our race of the fame of the great and good is eloquently painted in the well-known and exquisite lines of JTongHofn : Fame. 329 "Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time ; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o er life s solemn main A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again." " Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it : or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up ; or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead ; but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse, nor raise us." * Few exceptions to this rule there are, and among them we may mention the " Pilgrim s Progress " of honest John Bunyan, whose inimitable allegory till a century after his death had elapsed, was only prized as a household treasury of religious truth by the humbler classes, the more edu cated passing it by as deficient in literary art. But Bunyan was not actuated by any desire of mere human applause ; a purer and a higher motive influenced his mind. In the same category, we place Leigh Rich mond s "Annals of the Poor," "The whole Duty of Man," and other religious classics, as well as the self-sac rificing labors of the missionaries of the Gospel. We might suggest another classification men of military renown. Homer s great epic has proved the prolific source of a long race of heroes, and hero-worshippers. But * Colton. 330 Mosaics. will not the moralist dissent from the common judg ment of the world, as to its estimate of such men ? For what is the world indebted to the gallantry and military prowess of a Caesar, an Alexander, or a Napoleon? Would not the progressive civilization, with all its train of blessings, have become as diifusive and wide-spread, without the fearful havoc of war ? Is it a benefit to the race, that millions of immortal beings should be thus immolated as a vast holocaust, to the quenchless and riotous ambition of one ? If there be virtue in the benefactions of the philanthropist, can there be virtue also in the cruel scourge of the military conqueror? The great world judges insanely in this matter. An arrogant and imperious ambition makes a man a despot and a tyrant ; and whether in private or in public life, he becomes a curse instead of a bless ing. Yet, how many assign to the military chieftain the highest niche in the temple of fame. The plains of Waterloo our tourists make a place of pilgrimage it is viewed as classic ground ; but is it not steeped in human gore one vast Aceldama and is it not sur mounted with a huge pyramid a hecatomb of human skulls ? It is the war of aggression we declaim against ; there is a war of necessity which is justifiable. There are others of dwarfish ambition, who are emulous of any kind of notoriety. Finding they have no hope of attaining a laudable celebrity, they become enamored of any folly, and when their vicious proclivi ties obtain the mastery, they are content even to become eminent in crime. We have all heard of Dick Turpin, the highwayman, and others who have ren- Fame. 331 dered themselves notorious for their daring outrages and crimes. There is a class of writers who have basely corrupted the popular mind, by investing the most stupendous vices with a kind of heroism, which has beguiled the weak and unprincipled to ruin. Such men have a fearful responsibility to answer. There is also a species of ambition (scarcely deserving the name) ignoble in its purpose and aim, so supremely selfish, that it might be styled a concentrated person ality which sacrifices everything to its attainment. This rules in the heart of the miser, and shall we add, sometimes in that of the merchant. Cupidity is the ruling passion of our age. Men of our day covet money more than moral excellence, because it is of more marketable value on change. Such a passion for gain annihilates every good feeling of humanity, when indulged without restraint. And if the much-coveted wealth be secured, its possessor has need of Argus hun dred eyes to watch it, and as many arms as Briareus to protect it from the depredations of the envious. The passion thus perverted and abused, like the blasting sirocco of the desert, ruthlessly sweeps over every fair spot of moral beauty, uprooting, desolating, and destroying it in its course. Some of the ancient philosophers declaimed against it as a mutable and inconsistent principle, since it often imparted a false lustre to vice, and forsook the modesty of true virtue ; but it is assailed in a more direct and uncompromising manner by the Oracles of Truth, because it intrenches upon the divine prerogative, puiarcjj compares fame to fire. " When you have kindled it," he says, " you 332 Mosaics. may easily preserve it ; but if you once extinguish it, it will not be easy to rekindle the flame." The true rationale of the question seems, then, to be this : " With the generality of natures a moderate use of praise, as an incentive to duty, and a reward for its performance, appears to be quite proper. There is a vast class of acts and duties, which, though good, are not to be accomplished and attended to without labo rious exertion and some degree of self-denial. To sustain and carry out oneself in these matters, one s own approving conscience is all very well ; but though a good, it is a solitary and unsocial feeling. Man dearly loves to find that he is of some consequence to man. He likes to take men along with him in his own approbation. He feels in their praise the bond of a common nature press delightfully upon his heart." * A love of flattery is an element, which, if indulged unduly, will render its victim ridiculous, as well as per vert his whole moral being. Some men are so inflated with self-esteem and love of fulsome adulation, that no irony, however palpable, will undeceive them. There are some persons who would be prostrate on the ground, if their vanity or their pride did not keep them up. Some are proud of their literary attain ments ; but as f eremg i^aglor observes, " those who exhibit most of their pride of intellect discover their ignorance the most." Pope has said, substantially, the same thing ; but Hjjakspmre s remark is most to the point ; he says " vanity keeps persons in favor with themselves, who are out of favor with all others." We * Chambers. Fame. are all liable to screen the folly from our own convic tion, but can readily discover it in our neighbor. Per haps the fop is the most harmless, yet he is the most contemptible of all characters. We are invited to admire the taste and skill of the tailor the exterior of the man, not the man proper the casket, not the gem it incloses. This frailty is a venial fault, perhaps, in the other sex ; we deem it fitting to add the adorn ments of art to the graces of nature ; and it is not sur prising that it should beget a little latent vanity in the possessor. Coltott, who usually deals in grave apothegms, indulges a sly sarcasm upon the fair sex ; he says that " ladies of fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride. If you fail to inspire a woman with love to yourself," he continues, " fill her above the brim with love of herself all that runs over will be yours." The love of approbation, when it is beautified with virtue and tempered with the excellent grace of modesty, becomes a motive or principle of paramount value to woman. It is to this, we may trace her fealty and that wealth of affection to those for whom nature designed she should become the almoner. It is, in great part, to this we are to ascribe those countless gentle charities that enrich and beautify the charmed circle of domestic life. Our sympathies as men are on the side of modesty and virtue, after all our many misdemeanors and delin quencies. Look at the sweet surprise, which awaited the modesty of a once unknown authoress, now so world-renowned. " Miss Burney, afterwards Madame D Arblay, wrote 334 Mosaics. her celebrated novel of Evelina, when only seventeen years of age, and published it without the knowledge of her father, who, having occasion to visit the metro polis, soon after it had issued from the press, purchased it as the work then most popular, and most likely to prove an acceptable treat to his family. " When Dr. Burney met his family the customary question of What news? was rapidly addressed to him. Nothing, said the doctor, but a great deal of noise about a novel which I have brought you. " When the book was produced, and its title read, the surprised and conscious Miss Burney turned away her face to conceal the blushes and delighted confusion which otherwise would have betrayed her secret. After dinner, the book was read, when the gratifying com ments made during its progress, and the acclamations which attended its conclusion, ratified the approbation of the public. The amiable author, whose anxiety and pleasure could with difficulty be concealed, was at length overcome by the delicious feelings of her heart ; she burst into tears, and, throwing herself on her father s neck, avowed herself the author of Evelina. The joy and surprise of her sisters, and still more of her father,- cannot easily be expressed. Dr. Burney, conscious as he was of the talents of his daughter, never thought that such maturity of observation and judg ment, such fertility of imagination and chasteness of style, could have been displayed by a girl of seven teen." A word or two more about vanity for much as it has been written against by moralists, is it yet as rife Fame. 335 in communities as ever as it was times past. Jlnteca observes: "Take away from mankind their vanity and their ambition, and there would be but/ew claiming to be heroes and patriots." Our overweening self- esteem, like the passion of love, blinds, as well as intoxicates us. $ffifydtmtttt& remarks : " It is our own vanity that makes the vanity of others intolerable to us." Vanity frequently crosses its own purposes, and entails upon its victim contempt instead of admiration and applause. In attempting to deceive others, it often reacts by deceiving him who practises it. Vanity and meanness are frequent concomitants, and when they are found combined in any person, the world denounces him. "Most people dislike vanity in others," observed cJTSttRIm, " whatever share they have of it themselves ; but I give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others who are within his sphere of action ; and, therefore, in many cases, it would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his vanity, among the other comforts of life." Yet the difference among men in the matter of vanity consists mainly in this the wise and prudent know their weak points, and keep them out of view, while the witless boaster betrays himself, in his ill- disguised efforts to conceal them. " This," it has been said, " is the darn in the stocking, which is the sign of premeditated poverty." It is the same with good qualities. A wise man is vain of his talents or acquire ments, but he shows them in a modest way, that the 336 Mosaics. world may supply the praise due to them ; whereas the fool adds the praise himself, and the world, jealous of its authority, gives none. So that vanity, which all deprecate, seems to be a failing not confined to a few, but found to pervade all classes. Robert Jail observes : "The truly good man is jealous over himself lest the notoriety of his best actions, by blending itself with their motive, should diminish their value ; the vain man performs the same actions for the sake of that notoriety. The good man quietly dis charges his duty, and shuns ostentation ; the vain man considers every good deed lost that is not publicly dis played. The one is intent upon realities, the other upon semblances; the one aims to be virtuous, the other to appear so." " Vanity," it has been asserted, " furnishes to many individuals their whole stock of happiness. On the other hand, a virtuous fame is a great thing for a man ; it is silence for him when he wants to speak it is a pulpit to preach from more effective than an arch bishop s throne and it is an affectionate attention from a multitude of listeners." But strange and pitiful are the dilemmas into which the vainglorious some times fall. The celebrated Robert Hall once visited London for the purpose of hearing the noted Dr. Mason of ISTew York deliver a discourse before the London Missionary Society. The extraordinary effect which the masterly address produced was the theme for the time of general observation, and Hall was among the most enthusiastic of its admirers. Shortly after his return to Leicester, a certain clerical gentle- Fame. 337 man made him an accidental visit, when Mr. Hall requested him to officiate in his pulpit that even ing, assigning as a reason that he had just returned from London oppressed with a sense of the wonderful eloquence of Dr. Mason of New York. The visitor affected a desire to be excused preaching before so distinguished a scholar as Mr. Hall. The latter, how ever, would take no denial, insisting that if he did not, there would be no sermon that evening. Our clerical novitiate, who is described as " a little pompous personage a man of great verbosity and paucity of thought at length acceded to the request, and ascended the pulpit. At the close of the services, Mr. Hall, with great warmth of feeling, thanked him for his discourse, which he said had given him more comfort than any sermon he had ever heard in his life. This assertion inflamed the vanity of the one, and provoked the sarcasm of the other. The former, with ill-concealed eagerness, urged Mr. Hall to state what there was in the effort that afforded him so much plea sure. He replied, "Sir, I have just returned from hearing that great man, Dr. Mason of New York. Why, sir, he is my very beau ideal of a minister. He reminds me more strongly than any other of our day, of what one might suppose the Apostle Paul to have been. Such profound thought, such majesty of diction and such brilliancy of illustration I have never heard equalled; and it left me with such an overpower ing conviction of my own insignificancy, that I had resolved never to enter the pu)pit again ;" and rising up, he energetically exclaimed: "but thank 15 338 Mosaics. God, I have heard you, sir, and I feel myself a man again." $pr. f olnrsan remarks : "Few are there who are furnished with abilities sufficient to recommend their actions to the admiration of the world, and to distinguish themselves from the rest of mankind ! Providence, for the most part, sets us upon a level, and observes a kind of proportion in its dispensations towards us. If it renders us perfect in one accomplishment, it generally leaves us defective in another, and seems careful rather of preserving every person from being mean and deficient in his qualifications, than of making any single one eminent or extraordinary." Yet the restless activities of men are ever emulous of distinction, in some department or other; and if they are not educated to a noble purpose, they will descend to the ignoble and unworthy. Egotism, or personal vanity may further be sub divided into national types. The Frenchman felici tates himself upon the fact of his belonging to a great empire the empire of the illustrious Napoleon. His master-passion is for glory and revolutions; and his prevailing incentive pleasure. He is somewhat of a paradox, being never so much at rest as. when he is fluttering about on the Boulevards or at a ball. Yet is he the model of politeness for the choice is usually determined between French polish or British lustre, and sometimes we find incorporated a moiety of each in the American standard. The sturdy Englishman reverses the plan with his neighbor on the opposite Fame. 339 side of the Channel. He boasts loudly of his inheri tance in the greatest nation upon earth the land of Shakspeare, Milton, Newton and Wellington domin ions upon which the sun never sets ; and not content with claiming the land on both sides the seas includes the intervening waters. He is proud of his mother tongue a language that is soon to become the vernacular of all nations. He is proud, also, and with justice, of its literature its rich revenue of wealth in science and song. Lastly, his sense of the sublime, culminates in his loyal devotion to his queen. John Bull is, moreover, somewhat vain of the vast wealth and commerce of his country, and of her peerless aristocracy ; but in his enthusiastic admiration of her grandeur, he often for gets to commiserate the hapless condition of her suffer ing poor, and quite ignores her grievous taxation, and the monstrous incubus of her national debt. Another national characteristic of John Bull, is his love of caste. This pride of station is not confined to any particular class, it pervades all grades of society. " A sovereign will not speak to a shilling a shilling will not notice a sixpence and a sixpence will sneer at a penny." Such absurdity is only equalled by its coun terpart toadyism, which is the quintessence of mean ness. Brother Jonathan, it is admitted on all hands, is a little ahead of all creation. He belongs to a great country having the greatest rivers, the greatest area, the greatest mountains, the greatest cataracts ; and the greatest number of the " most remarkable men," ex- 340 Mosaics. elusive of whole legions of poets of any nation, or all nations beneath the blue canopy of heaven. And he has good reason and right to be proud of a country founded by the illustrious patriot Washington a coun try that has presented to the world a Webster an Irving and a Prescott. Jonathan is mighty " cute" and shrewd, as all who have enjoyed his acquaintance can testify; and he is as ingenious at the fabrication of wooden nutmegs and clocks, as at calculating. His movements are measured by the locomotive and the telegraph he works and talks, and eats and sleeps, in less time than his neighbor across the water requires to perform one of these functions. In a word, he is wide awake, and in the van of human progress. He deprecates a titled Peerage, because he is himself a sov ereign in his own right and he is exceedingly jealous of his royal prerogatives. According to the dictum of his constitutional charter " all men are equal" all being sovereignyet this equality, unlike that of the British peerage, suffers some disturbance by the ine qualities of wealth, intellect and color. Our subject expands on every side but we must not venture upon too minute a classification. There is the pride of the parvenu a very wretched mimicry of refined, polite life. If Shakspeare ever wrote pro phetically, his allusion to the " offence that smells so rank to heaven" possibly had relation to this high- treason against the true nobility of human nature. There is another social type pious pride. Dean Swift has a pungent line about this " the pride that mocks humility is the Devil s darling sin." Counterfeit piety Fame. and false modesty pass too frequently, like spurious coin, for the true and genuine. By the terra modesty we mean gentleness and grace an element that seems to find friendly culture by the fair, rather than the rougher sex. It is queenly among woman s graces. There is magic and music in the very word modesty and on this account, perhaps, we have been accus tomed to assign it, par excellence to woman, since her coronal is composed of the triple graces Beauty, Mod esty and Truth. But to resume : " It is part of an indiscreet and troublesome ambition," says an old author, "to care too much about fame about what the world says of us : to be always looking into the faces of others for approval, to be always anxious for the effect of what we do or say, to be always shouting to hear the echo of our own voices." ir Jnirg SStoiicn has some quaint lines which are to the same point. He says : " Fame s but a hollow echo ; gold, pure clay ; Honor the darling but of one short day ; Beauty, th eye s idol, but a damask d skin ; State but a golden prison to live in, And torture free-born minds ; embroider d trains, Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins ; And blood allied to greatness, is alone Inherited, not purchased, nor our own : Fame, honor, beauty, state, train, blood, and birth, Are but the fading blossoms of the earth." " Fame, ? writes frfring, " indignant at the narrow limits which circumscribe existence, is for ever strug gling to soar beyond them, to triumph over smce and 342 Mosaics. time, and to bear a name, at least above the inevitable oblivion in which everything else that concerns us must be involved." ^igtort, in his admirable Essays, has the following sentence : " The love of life may in strictness be defensible only like the love of Fame, as it is com bined with the feeling of being useful : and it would be an act of gross injustice to put all those to death, simply because they themselves would wish to be alive." Poets have labored to sing it out of existence, and essayists have written learnedly as to its vanity, but it is questionable whether they succeeded in convincing any considerable portion of mankind that their affected indif ference about its possession was real. A far more proba ble and perhaps just conclusion which their readers would draw, is, that the desire of the thing which they denounce as unworthy of human pursuit, constituted the soul of their exertions. Fame has been pictured as " a beautiful bubble, which dissolves as soon as it is grasped a light aerial thing that ceases with the breath which creates it. Those whose conceptions never com pass the grandeur of their being, but range along the lowly pathway from the cradle to the coffin have sought by the aid of satire and irony to repudiate it as delusion and folly. Yet is it not more repugnant to the aspirations of our common nature to suffer annihi lation than to pass into utter oblivion ?" From what has been adduced, it is evident that the final cause of this disturbing passion among men, is not infrequently an excessive self-esteem ; a weakness or peccadillo that has been facetiously defined the " suf- Fame. 343 fering the private I to be too much in the public eye " the estimating ourselves at our own valuation, which is usually fifty per centum above the real value. " All men," says g Israeli, " are fond of glory ; and even those philosophers who write against that noble passion, prefix their names to their own works. It is worthy of observation, however, that the authors 01 two religious books, universally received, have con cealed their names from the world. The " Imitation of Christ " is attributed, without authority, to Thomas a Kempis ; and the author of the " Whole Duty of Man " still remains undiscovered. Millions of these books have been dispersed in the Christian world. To have revealed their names would have given them as much worldly fame as any moralist has obtained but they contemned it; or rather their indifference to popular applause was the growth of their religious faith and sentiment." Napoleon, leading his victorious legions over the almost impassable barriers of the Alps, scarcely expe rienced more intense delight and self-satisfaction in the applause of an admiring world, than did the jumping hero, Sam Patch, when poising himself over the seeth ing waters of the Passaic ; for, whatever the disparity of their ambition, his ear no less greedily drank in the loud acclaim of the wondering multitude. Both bounded into notoriety by wondrous leaps one by overturning kingdoms, the other by enacting a some what similar feat with himself, and each seemingly instigated by a thirst for applause. Dickens " Household Words " some time since 34:4: Mosaics. furnished an amusing paper on the " Back Ways to Fame," the purport of which was to exhibit many of the absurd expedients adopted by authors of the olden time to gain celebrity or notoriety, in most instances of which they as signally failed of their object. A species of literary strategy seems to have been resorted to, by those valiant knights of the pen, for taking the public captive. Some panoplied themselves with a profusion of high-sounding arid arrogant names, others used pompous and ridiculous titles for their books, and others relied upon their fulsome dedications. It is said of Leo X., that when one dedicated to him a work entitled, " An Infallible Method of Making Gold," he paid him for the dedication with a great sack to contain the gold he made. " The desire for fame has induced others to seek it by much writing, in the belief that to be constantly before the world was to be honored by it, or at least and that is something to be known. There have been many men whose works contained more leaves than there were days in their lives; some being by nature prolific and industrious, others only because they were resolved to occupy the public ears. In the first class was the Spanish dramatist, Lopez de Vega, whose works covered ten times as many pages as there were days in his life. In the second class it will suffice to name |oacljim Jforiras, who wrote of himself thus : " Either I shall die very young, or I shall give to tho . world a thousand works, honestly counted, in as good Latin as I can produce. I intend to entitle them The Chiliad. It is a settlad thing : death only can Fame. 345 prevent me from accomplishing my purpose. Already nineteen have seen the light, and I shall very shortly publish eighty-one others, which will just make up the tenth part of my Chiliad. " When such a seeker after fame can find no printer rash enough to risk a penny on his works, it often hap pens that he is insane enough to print them at his own expense. Ulysses Aldrovandus consumed all his patri mony in the printing of his books ; and, as nobody bought them, he caused copies to be distributed to all the libraries of Europe as eternal monuments both of his learning and his generosity. In addition to oddity of titles, some equally odd topics engaged the wit of some of the fame-hunting scribes of yore, such are the following : " How many rowers had Ulysses ? Was the Iliad composed before the Odyssey ? Who was the mother of Hecuba ? What name did Achilles bear when wearing woman s dress ? What was the usual subject of the songs of the Sirens ? Nicanor wrote six volumes on a dot, the grammatical full stop. Messala wrote a dissertation on the letter S, and Martin Vogel wrote another on the German B." Of all writers, he who has fallen from boundless popularity into the most perfect neglect, is Peter Pindar caused by his sins against decency. The struggle for the "bubble reputation," is ever being incessantly carried onward, at whatever cost, and with the most unwearied assiduity. There seems to be a species of agrarianism in this master passion, for the poor, no less than the rich, vie with their compeers for 15* 346 Mosaics. the brief celebrity that is tardily awarded to excel lence. The latter class, however, sometimes may be seen to acquire a factitious importance and advantage from their position in society; and although the enjoy ment of popularity and distinction may not always be acquired by the severe conditions of deserving it, yet this will generally be the case ; for the popular judg ment is becoming better informed and better guided than in days of yore. We ought to distinguish between mere idle vanity, and the earnest aspirations of high ambition, because they are as little akin hi reality, as are the spurious and the real, in everything else. The former may be com pared to the noxious weed, the latter to the cultured fruit ; the one is allied to great and noble deeds, the other to inglorious indolence and sloth. True Fame has been beautifully pictured by our great Epic poet, in his " Lycidas :" " Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days : But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. But not the praise, Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears." Many weak mortals have made it a point of ambi tion to indite their own epitaphs ; and the too convinc ing evidence upon the numerous monuments and tombs, bears witness to the painful fact that some men are never weaned from folly, even at the closing hour. It Fame. 347 is a singular idea to cling with such tenacity to so frail a memento, especially when it is remembered that there is such improbability against these monumental inscrip tions being read, or if seen, believed ; and the still greater uncertainty of their surviving long the corro sions of decay. The builders of the Pyramids have fallen into the other extreme the monument has swallowed up the individual, instead of the individual the monument. It was a good idea of the architect who erected a light house for one of the Ptolemies, when he inscribed his own name, and afterwards covered it with the name of the monarch, trusting that the corroding influence of time would lay bare the deceit, and posterity award him the meed he deserved. The dread of oblivion is never more clearly shown than in those social transmu tations of the affections, wherein we endeavor to extend by canvas and color the ordinary allotments of life. We summon up one of our blandest and most insinu ating smiles, and the arrangement of the hair, the won derful adjustment of the neckerchief, the best coat, and all the little paraphernalia that goes to distinguish one man from another, are suddenly awakened and brought out with a bold and prominent relief. We are soothed by leaving behind us something so exclusively personal, with a vigorous dash of the ideal delivered by our selves. Although these transcripts of humanity are still found in such profusion, that delicacy instinctively shrinks from their adaptations and their often very equivocal situations, yet, nevertheless, these silent trus tees are ever multiplying, and starting fresh enigmas 348 Mosaics. for future generations to speculate upon. In fact, the road to fame presents twists and sinuosities so mani fold, that it would be next to impossible to prescribe their boundary limits. Some, indeed, affect to find a short cut to her temple, but many more miss their way, lured aside by some ignis fatuus, or vagrant sprite from dream-land. The idle scrawl of the Roman sol diery, still visible on the ruins of Pompeii, have out lived many a high aspiration of genius. We have lit tle sympathy for the adulation that pride offers at the shrine of ancestry. What is it, but robbing the grave of its spoils? a kind of retrospect of life a walking backwards ; it is, moreover, in itself of so little credit, that one would imagine its very absurdity would insure its annihilation. Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield, ridiculed very happily, doubtful pedigrees, by placing two old heads among the portraits of his ancestors, inscribed Adam de Stanhope and Eve de Stanhope. All that a man rightfully can lay claim to, is his own name ; the embellishing should be his own, not that of his defunct predecessor. The pursuits of literature, science and art, present the great highways to eminence and dis tinction. The painter wields a power and the enthu siastic lover of art in all times acknowledges it, equal in its enduring influence to that of the author, or the man of science. We may undoubtedly have our seve ral preferences, but comparatively all are agreed as to the respective merits of the great masters Rembrandt, Titian, Rubens, Vandyke, or Murillo. Raphael is al most idolized ; and who that has feasted his gaze on his magnificent productions, has not felt his sense of Fame. 349 honesty brought to a severe test, or in contemplating some of the truthful and sunny scenes depicted by Cuyp, or the carefully elaborated pictures of Gerrard Dow? The amusing story respecting the great artist) Leonardo da Vinci, and his obtuse monkish friends, will recur to some. Da Vinci was engaged upon his celebrated picture of the Last Supper. The Superior of the Brotherhood for whose church it was intended, complained to the Grand Duke of the dilatory manner in which the work was progressing. The painter, feeling justly indignant at the officious meddling of one who had no conception of the silent labor of the mind required for this ela borate performance, threatened to confer a favor upon the holy father, by painting his visage for the portrait of Judas ; a hint quite sufficient to stop all further pro ceedings in that quarter, for, however oblivious a man might be to the good or evil report of those immedi ately in juxtaposition with him, this kind of notoriety was of a character so outrageous, that no ecclesiastic could possibly be found to give the least sanction to it. The literati have fewer advantages, perhaps, than any other class, for insuring an unclouded fame. It is but recently that some of our best poets, such as Shelley, Wordsworth and Hood, have begun to be appreciated; the latter being long regarded as the mere writer of a few comicalities, overlooking alto gether the wonderful beauty of his earnest and exqui site appeals in behalf of suffering humanity. Other like instances might also be quoted. Fame is often swayed by fashion, and her edicts are not less arbitrary 350 Mosaics. or absolute in the award of merit, than in other mat ters. The character of the great lexicographer affords an instance in support of this assertion : who would think of tolerating such an amount of arrogant rude ness and conceit now-a-days? There are no Boswells to chronicle, or Thrales to indulge such indelicacies; and yet, Johnson s fame has survived with the greater portion of the public to the present time. But even the great master-poet scarcely enjoys a universal fame. A few years prior to the Christian era, Caesar and Cicero entered into a ptaper war respecting the character of Cato ; the controversy is not yet decided, and, judging from the aspect of the affair, it is never likely to be adjusted. The author, however, as well as the artist, may prefer not unfrequently to enjoy his awards of fame during his lifetime ; yet this very rational desire is but seldom gratified. This is like prompt payment, to attain which, many a thirsty aspi rant after renown, has felt inclined to propose a com promise in the amount ; like the impatient heir, who, to obtain in advance his portion of the inheritance, offered to deduct a discount for cash. How many an unfortunate literary adventurer sports himself, and vaunts with the air of a hero the lion of a day and passes into his native oblivion as speedily again. Haz- litt writes about an instance of a man of genius and eloquence, to whom, from a habit of excessive talking, the certainty of seeing what he wrote in print the next day was too remote a stimulus for his imagination, and who uniformly laid aside his pen in the middle of an article, if a friend dropped in, to finish the subject Fame. 351 more effectually aloud, so that the approbation of his hearer, and the sound of his own voice, might be co-instantaneous. The author of Junius s Letters is, on the contrary, as remarkable an instance of a writer, who has arrived at all the public honors of literature, without being known by name to a single individual, and who may be said to have realized all the pleasures of a posthumous fame, while living, without the small est gratification of personal vanity. An author in such circumstances, if successful, may enjoy in secret the eulogy of the public, with the same acute relish that any person may overhear a commendation of himself; the more valued, because it may be deemed the more sincere than if it were personally addressed." It is related of Sir Walter Scott, that having once tasted the Yarmouth bloaters, then an article of less savory notoriety than at present, he allowed their supe riority, and inquired where they were to be got. " My mother," says the writer, " having undertaken the com mission, applied to the fishmonger, a most worthy and matter-of-fact Triton, whom no one would have sus pected of an addiction to poetry or romance. Hearing that the half-hundred small fishes were to be sent as far as Sussex-place, he rather shook his head at the incon venient distance." " Rather out of our beat, ma am. There are plenty of places where they can be got good." " I am sorry for that, for I am afraid Sir Walter Scott will be disappointed, having learned that yours are the best " " Sir Walter Scott, ma am ! God bless my soul, is 352 Mosaics. Sir Walter in town ? Tom, go and pick the very best half hundred you can find in that fresh lot from Yar mouth. Well, ma am, and how is he looking ? Why, if you had told me they were for him, I would have sent for them to Jerusalem or Johnny Groat s." This circumstance being recounted to Scott, he cordially exclaimed : " Well, now, this is something like real, tangible fame. I like this more than all the minauderies of the old French countesses, who used to bother me at Paris with their extravagant compliments, and were only thinking, I ll be sworn, of their own vanity all the while." Few, comparatively, ever live to enjoy the luxury of praise. They have to work for credit, and take their pay in trust. The ungrateful public sometimes dis honors the acceptance, and refuses often the just claim of its best and most devoted servants, while empiricism and quackery obtain the laurels. " Ah me full sorely is my heart forlorn, To think how modest worth neglected lies ; While partial Fame doth with the blasts adorn Such deeds alone as pride and pomp disguise, Deeds of ill sorts and mischievous emprise." Sir Christopher Wren prided himself, not upon the stupendous Metropolitan Cathedral, but upon the com paratively unassuming edifice of St. Dunstan s in the East. It certainly is a charming specimen, with its spire springing upwards from the roof with so much buoyancy and grace, that it almost carries with it the appearance of insecurity. This feeling wrought upon Fame. 353 the fancies of several of his associates, who suggested the probability of danger. Sir Christopher, whose soul was bound up in this fabric of his dotage, expressed his determination, should such be the case, that he would not survive what was so choice a relic of his fame. One dreadful night a night of which the " memory of the oldest inhabitant " could furnish no parallel he was awoke by the fury of the storm, and jumping up he hastened to the church, and ascend ing to its steeple, he remained there all night long, mute with excitement, amidst the shouting and shriek ing of the wild and angry elements. The church of St. Dunstan s still remains, the endearing monument of hope and faith. D Israeli tells us of a man of letters, of England, who had passed his life in constant study ; and it was observed that he had written several folio volumes, which his modest feelings would not permit him to expose to the eye even of his friends. He promised to leave his labors to posterity; and he seemed some times, with a glow on his countenance, to exult that they would not be unworthy of their acceptance. At his death, his sensibility took the alarm ; he had the folios brought to his bed ; no arm could open them, for they were closely locked. At the sight of his favorite and mysterious labors, he paused ; he seemed disturbed in his mind, while he felt at every moment his strength decaying. Suddenly, he raised his feeble hands by an effort of firm resolve, burned his papers, and smiled as the greedy Vulcan licked up every page. The task exhausted his remaining strength, and he expired. 354: Mosaics. Richelieu, after humbling the monarchy of Austria, and curbing the power of the aristocracy in France, was, 200 years after that event, despoiled in his tomb, and the head (from which emanated such splendid combinations) borne aloft through the streets of Paris by a miserable and infuriate mob, as that of a traitor. The struggle after fame has often been the very struggle of existence ; and we peruse with bitter re flection the biographies of those whose march has been progressive. We are apt to overlook the days and nights of misery, privation and toil, which have been the sad allotment and inheritance of many a child of genius. Writes iEasljmgton $rfmrg "It has long been de plored by authors as a lamentable truth, that they sel dom receive impartial justice from the world while living. The grave seems to be the ordeal to which their names must be subjected, and from whence, if worthy of immortality, they rise with pure and imper ishable lustre. How many, who have flourished in un merited popularity, descend into oblivion, and it may be said, they rest from their labors, and their works do follow them. Here, likewise, many an ill-starred author, after struggling w T ith penury and neglect, and starving through a world which he has enriched by his talents, sinks to rest, and becomes a theme of universal admiration and regret. The sneers of the cynical, the detraction of the envious, the scoffing of the ignorant, are silenced, at the hallowed precincts of the tomb ; and the world, awaking to a sense of his value, when Fame. 355 he is removed beyond its patronage forever, monu ments are erected to his memory, books are written in his praise, and thousands will devour with avidity the biography of a man, whose life passed unnoticed before their eyes. He is like some canonized saint, at whose shrine treasures are lavished, and clouds of incense offered up ; though, while living, the slow hand of char ity withheld the pittance that would have soothed his miseries." Sjjr0tt, it will be recollected, sums it all up in a brief stanza : " What is the end of Fame ? T is but to fill A certain portion of uncertain paper ; Some liken it to climbing up a hill, Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapor, For this, men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill ; And bards burn, \vhat they call, the midnight taper. To have, when the original is dust, A name ; a wretched picture, and worse bust." Is it not, then, a strange phenomenon an anomaly that the love of fame should, in spite of all opposing obstacles and discouraging difficulties, still continue to fire the energies of the poverty-stricken and neglected sons of genius ? How cold and profitless the oblation of the world to those who have adorned, delighted and illumined it ! When the philosopher, ^muEKgOTB*, lay expiring for want of sustenance, his pupil, Pericles, sent him a sum of money ; " take it back," said the dying man, "if he had wished to keep the lamp alive, he ought to have administered the oil before." juitt compares the goddess of fame to a dow- 356 Mosaics. erless virgin, and insists that it is consequently the more noble to woo her, since it must be from love and not for lucre. The sword is less glorious than the pen. "The stupendous monuments of Memphis and of India are less enduring. Without the bard and the historian, monarchs might build, and artists design in vain ; yet when caprice and fashion generally govern the world s opinion concerning living authors, the favorites of the day seldom stand the test of fame." The " Paradise Lost," and the "Pilgrim s Progress," were like Shak- speare s immortal dramas, neglected during the lives of their authors. " Paradise Lost," was spoken of by SKaller, the great poet of the day (now himself almost forgotten), "as a poem remarkable for nothing but its length, and writ ten by one Milton, a blind man." Shakspeare was so little in repute, while living, that only three or four of his acting plays were printed singly, during his life. It required the century to rectify the judgment of mankind. Homer, and others might also be quoted as similar instances. If the great world did but estimate aright its vast obligations to books and their authors, the great purveyors of our mental aliment, we should cease to hear such piteous plaints as the following : " What could ever reconcile genius to its sufferings, its sacrifices, its fevered inquietudes, the intense labor which can alone procure what the shallow world deems the giant offspring of a momentary inspiration ? what could ever reconcile it to these, but the haughty and unquenchable consciousness of internal power ; the hope, which has the fullness of certainty, that in pro- Fame. 357 portion to the toil is the reward; the sanguine and impetuous anticipations of glory, which burst the boundaries of time and space, and range with a pro phet s rapture the immeasurable regions of immortality. It is too true a picture. Still, what does it prove, but that this earth is no home for the more spiritual part of our nature that those destined to awaken our highest aspirations, and our tenderest sympathies, are victims rather than votaries of the divine light within them ? They gather from sorrow its sweetest emotions ; they repeat of hope but its noblest visions ; they look on nature with an earnest love, which wins the power of making her hidden beauty visible, and they reduce the passionate, the true, and the beautiful. Alas! they themselves are not what they paint ; the low want sub dues the lofty will ; the small and present vanity inter feres with the far and glorious aim; but still, it is something to have looked beyond the common sphere, where they were fated to struggle. They paid in themselves the bitter penalty of not realizing their own ideal ; but mankind have to be thankful for the gener ous legacy of thought and harmony, bequeathed by those who were among earth s proscribed and miser- ble beings. Fame is bought by happiness." In a similar strain a lyric poet, CJmrks Hfoam, thus chants his sad refrain : "Some, with no place while they re living Take a proud place when life ends Some, with no friend kind and giving When they die have worlds of friends : Oh, the longing oh, the seeking 358 Mosaics. For that love which never came ; Oh, the weary heart, heart breaking For that mocking wreath of fame. I could weep for those I knew not, Saw not ne er on earth shall see ; I could blush for those that threw not Some balm o er their misery ; They whose genius like a glory, Scattered light where er it came, Woe, alas the poet s story Woe, the heart betrayed to fame." " Some," said JJ0mt0, " are willing to wed virtue for her personal charms, others for the sake of her expected dowry ;" so enthusiasm, by adding an imaginary value to our pursuits, lures us (like an enchantress, with ideal sights and sounds) onward : and should we fail after all our application, still, " the light that led us astray, was light from heaven," for our delusions have doubt less solaced and cheered many weary hours of " malig nant fortune." This passion, which inspires to virtuous deeds the modest and unknown, is the same with that which glowed in the heart of a Washington, urging him on, in the face of surrounding and almost insuperable dis couragements, to the rescue of his country that insti gated the youth in classic times to thrust his arm into the burning crucible actuated the wretch who pre cipitated Horace into the Tiber and impelled Cur- tius to cast himself into the yawning chasm. Leading, as it does, to deeds of heroism, and eliciting the dor mant energies and excellences of our nature, it never theless will occasionally reveal itself in manner very Fame. 359 outre, and no less annoying. The instance we are about to cite, will explain our meaning ; it properly refers, however, to a love of notoriety, not fame. On a certain occasion, the Emperor Charles V. was on a visit to the " eternal city," and inspecting the mag nificent monuments of its early glory, he was induced to ascend to the top of the Rotunda. A citizen accom panied him, for the purpose of pointing out its numer ous beauties. On retiring from the summit, the guide remarked, that he had felt a strange desire to seize his majesty in his arms, and by dashing both to atoms on the pavement below, win for himself an imperishable name. The emperor, of course, appreciated the man s intentions so well, that he had him removed to a place where his temptations and longings might be subjected to proper limitations. The destruction of so beautiful a work of art as the Temple of Diana, was considered a national calamity, and to show the horror and detes tation of the people towards the incendiary, it was enacted that his name should never more be heard; yet so subtile is fame, that the execrations of posterity are unsparingly bestowed upon the simple peasant Erastus, who furnishes the moral to many a story, of the sad effects of insane and misguided ambition. Napoleon was talkative when travelling, says his bio grapher, Count Bourienne. "When passing through Burgundy, on our return to Paris, after the battle of Marengo, he said exultingly, Well, a few more events like this campaign, and I may go down to posterity. I think, replied I, that you have already done enough to secure great and lasting fame. Yes, 360 Mosaics. replied he, I have done enough, that is true ; in less than two years I have won Cairo, Paris, and Milan ; but for all that, my dear fellow, were I to die to-morrow, I should not, at the end of ten centuries, occupy half a page of general history. " He was right. Many ages pass before the eye in the course of half an hour s read ing, and the duration of a reign of life is but the affair of a moment. In a historical summary, a page suffices to describe all the conquests of Alexander and Caesar, and all the devastations of Timour and Genghis Khan. We are indeed acquainted with only the least portion of past events. Is it worth while to desolate the world for so slight a memorial ? Old |jmm|J Collier quaintly says: "After all your magnifying of Fame, I am afraid twill not hold up to your standard. Tis a rich soil, I grant you; but oftener covered with weeds than grain. You say it produces heroes ; so much the worse. Twere well if there were fewer of them ; for I scarcely ever heard of any, excepting Hercules, but did more mischief than good. Those overgrown mortals commonly use their will with their right hand, and their reason with their left. Their pride is their title, and their power puts them in possession. Their pomp is furnished from rapine, and their scarlet dyed with human blood. To drive justice, and peace, and plenty before them, is a noble victory ; and the progress of violence goes for extent of empire. " And as for Alexander, what extent of country did he ravage, and how many thousands were sacrificed to his caprice? What famine, what inundations, what Fame. 361 plague could keep pace with him ? Did he not burn the capital of an empire in a frolic ? If his power had been equal to his ambition, Providence could scarcely have made the world faster than he would have destroyed it. If wrecks, and ruins, and desolations of kingdoms, are marks of greatness, why do not we worship a tempest, and erect a statue for the plague ?" We close our subject in the expressive lines of gotrog: " The love of praise, howe er concealed by art, Reigns, more or less, and glows in every heart ; The proud to gain it, toils on toils endure ; The modest shun it, but to make it sure. O er globes and sceptres, now on thrones it swells, Now trims the midnight lamp in college cells ; Tis tory, whig ; it plots, prays, preaches, pleads, Harangues in senates, squeaks in masquerades, It aids the dancer s heel, the writer s head, And heaps the plain with mountains of the dead, Nor ends with life, but nods in sable plumes, Adorns our hearse, and flatters on our tombs." 16 THE MAGIC OF MUSIC. Whence art thou from what causes dost thou spring, Oh, music ! thou divine, mysterious thing t | "*HE natural history of music is full of wonders. Its origin is a profound mystery. "Wherever we look into its inherent elements we are met by signs of precautionary care. It is as if the Giver of all good gifts had presided over the construction of this one with especial love, fencing it round with every possible natural security for its safe development, and planting them among those instincts we have least power to pervert. " We ask the question in vain, as we must ever do when we would follow paths which lose themselves in the depths of our being. We only kruow and only can know of music that its science is an instinct of our na ture its subjects the emotions of our hearts that at every step we advance in its fundamental laws we are but deciphering what is written within us, not trans- scribing anything from without. We know that the law which requires that after three whole notes a half note must succeed, is part of ourselves a necessity in 362 The Magic of Music. 363 our being one of the signs that distinguish man from the brute, but which we shall never account for till we are able to account for all things. " The connection between sound and numbers is a fact which at once invests music with the highest dignity. It is like adding to the superstructure of a delicate flower the roots of an oak of the forest. Far from being a frivolous art, meant only for the pastime of the senses in hours of idleness, it would seem to be of that importance to mankind that we are expressly furnished with a double means of testing its truth. The simple instinct of a correct ear and the closest cal culations of a mathematical head, give the same ver dict. Science proves what the ear detects the ear ratines what science asserts instinct and demonstra tion coalesce as they do with no other art for though the same species of identity exists between the rules of perspective and the intuition of a correct eye, yet the science in this instance is neither so profound, nor the instinct so acute. The mere fact that music and mathematics should be allied is a kind of phenome non." * " Music," wrote IMjiofrm, " is the mediator between the spiritual and Ihe sensual life. Although the spirit be not master of that which it creates through music, yet it is blessed in this creation, which, like every crea tion of art, is mightier than the artist." " We should hardly say that an ear for melody is the highest criterion of a taste for music. It sets heads wagging, and feet tapping sends the ploughman whist- * Quarterly Rev. 364: Mosaics. ling forth, and takes many a stall at the Opera ; but we suspect it is rather the love of harmony which is the real divining-rod of the latent treasures of deep musi cal feeling. Gretry danced, when a child, to the sound of dropping water, foreshowing perhaps in this the light character of his taste and compositions ; but Mo zart, it is well known, when an infant of only three years old, would strike thirds on the clavichord and incline his little head, smiling to the harmony of the vibrations. Nothing proves more strongly the angelic purity of music than the very tender age at which the mind declares for it. . No art has had such early profi cients, and such eager volunteers, and no art has so surely performed in manhood what it promised in in fancy. All the greatest musicians Handel, Haydn, Bach, Mozart, Mendelssohn (it seems not Beethoven, however) were infant prodigies. There seems to be nothing to dread in prematureness of musical develop ment it grows with the growth and strengthens with the strength in natural concord ; when we see a child picking out airs on a piano, or silent at a concert, we may rejoice in our hearts." The music of nature is a perpetual benediction " no ear is insensible to the music of the air in the branches of a tree to the groaning of it in the hollow cave to its whistle in the grass or to its spirit-voices in a stormy night around the dwelling. No ear is insensi ble to the trickling melody of the stream, to the deep song of the river, to the solemn anthem of the torrent, to the eternal harmonies of the ocean. Birds are pecu liarly the musicians of the material world. The Magic of Music. 365 " All sounds of nature are to my ear singularly sug gestive. I never hear a thrush or a blackbird without thinking of the Grampian hills or Deeside, till Auld Lang Syne comes up in limpid freshness. The owl hooting from the hollow of an old tree reminds me of the Pope, speaking ex cathedra, or a fat monk chant ing a midnight mass, in exchange for a mid-day meal. The lark rising on untiring pinions, and making the air ring with its sweet minstrelsy, ever singing and ever soaring upward and upward to the brilliant sun and blue sky, reminds me of the Protestant Christian, who visits the earth only to rest upon it, and again to rise upward with renewed vigor. Creation, Provi dence, and Redemption are to my mind rich in grand harmonies. All human life has seemed to me, as to Longfellow, a vast and mysterious cathedral, amid whose solitary aisles, and under whose sublime roof, mystic tones and melodies perpetually roll." * But how skillful and how rich their music is, we must learn, not from the printed page, but in the sunny grove. Though other creatures have not, as birds, the gift of song, yet are they not unmusical or without their parts in the mighty orchestra of living nature. To .man there is no music without soul. In music soul and sense both mingle and become one in its inspired sound. The feelings sing of themselves and make an orchestra of the brain. Life in power is action ; life in memory is elegy or eloquence. Music, rightly used, is as some one calls it, " the medicine of an afflicted mind a sweet, sad measure is the balm of a wounded * Dr. Cumming. 366 Mosaics. spirit ; and joy is heightened by exultant strains. Mu sic lightens toil; it annihilates social discords." * If we would seek to trace the origin of music, we shall have to go back to " the years beyond the flood " possibly to the " primal Paradise." Moses tells us that Jubal, who lived before the flood, was the in ventor of the Jcinnor and the hujah, i. e., the harp and the organ. The Jews were fond of music in their religious ceremonies, their feasts, their public rejoic ings, their marriages, and their mournings. Their kings and great men studied the art; and in King David s time it had reached to great perfection. The services of the Temple consisted in part of its solemn chants and choruses, with instrumental accompani ments. The invention . of the lyre is ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus, the Mercury of the Egyptians, which is a proof of its antiquity ; but a still greater proof of the existence of musical instruments amongst them at a very early age, is derived from the figure of an instrument said to be found on an obelisk, the erection of which is ascribed to Sesostris at Heliopolis. The Greeks, to some extent, cultivated music ; they as well as the Jews ascribe to it a remedial power for the cure of dis eases. Pindar, with poetic license, speaks of ^Esculapius healing acute disorders with soothing songs ; but pos sibly that genius was merely a myth, and the story a mere fable. Pliny mentions Theophrastus as suggest ing a tune for the cure of the gout. Boyle and Shakspeare mention the effects of music super vesicant and even Sir W. Temple seems to have given credit to * Henry Giles. The Magic of Music. 367 the stories of its curative virtues. According to ancient authorities, a fever could be cured by a song, deafness by the trumpet, and pestilence by the lyre. Dr. Burney refers to a case of a lady who could hear only while a drum was beating, so that her husband hired a drummer, as her servant, in order to enjoy the pleasure of her conversation. If our predecessors did not possess a more cultivated taste for music than our selves, they, at least, had a stronger faith in its utility. A curious story is given by Yigneul de Marville, of a person of distinction, who, being suddenly seized with violent sickness, instead of seeking a consultation of physicians, summoned a band of musicians ; and so marvellous was the effect of the melody upon his viscera, that in a short time his interior organism was lulled into a perfect calm. The same writer also relates an instance of the magical effects which attended the vocal powers of the famous singer, Fari- nelli, upon the king of Spain. His majesty, it is said, was afflicted with the profoundest melancholy; nothing could excite an emotion in him ; he lived in a total oblivion of life, immured in his darkened chamber. The physicians ordered Farinelli at first to sing in an outer room, which he continued to do for a day or two, but without any visible benefit to the royal patient. The expedient was resumed, and at length it was observed that the king a woke from his stupor, seemed to listen, and tears were seen starting from his eyes. The following day he ordered the door of his chamber to be left open; and soon, the perturbed spirit entirely left our modern Saul, and the medicinal 368 Mosaics. voice of Farinelli effected what no other medicine could. D Israeli furnishes an interesting collection of accredited facts, as a test of credulity ; some of these anecdotes we cite for the edification of the reader. Naturalists assert that animals and birds, as well as " knotted oaks," as Congreve informs us, are sensible to the charms of music. This may serve as an instance : An officer was confined in the Bastile ; he begged the governor to permit him the use of his lute, to soften, by the harmonies of his instrument, the rigors of his imprisonment. At the end of a few days this modern Orpheus, playing on his lute, was greatly astonished to see frisking out of their holes great numbers of mice ; and descending from their woven habitations crowds of spiders, who formed a circle about him, while he continued his soul-subduing melody. He was petrified with amazement. Having ceased to play, the assem bly, who did not come to see his person, but to hear his instrument, immediately broke up. As he had a great dislike to spiders, it was two days before he ven tured again to touch his instrument. At length having overcome, for the novelty of his company, his dislike of them, he recommenced his concert, when the mixed assembly was by far more numerous than at first his musical amateurs numbering about one hundred. Having thus succeeded in attracting his unwelcome guests, he treacherously contrived their destruction, which he effected, as follows. He obtained from his keeper a cat, which he put in a cage, and let loose at the very instant when his little victims were least sus pecting danger, because most under the potent spell The Magic of Music. 369 that had beguiled them. A similar instance is recorded by the Abbe Olivet, of Pelisson, during his confine ment in the Bastile. Having discovered a spider form ing its web in the corner of a small window, he amused himself by placing flies at the edge, while his valet, who was with him, played on a bagpipe ; by degrees, the spider seemed to listen to the sound of the instru ment, when it would issue from its hole to run and catch its prey. Thus calling it always by the same sound, and placing the flies at a still greater distance, he succeeded, after several months, to drill the spider by regular exercise, so that at length, it never failed to answer the summons of the bagpipe, and seize on the fly provided for it, even on the knees of the prisoner. It cannot be denied, whatever we may think of the spider s taste for music, that the horse and the dog are affected by harmonious sounds ; and the feathered tribes, especially our song-birds, are pro voked to their sweet carolling by vocal or instrumental music. What canary can keep quiet when the piano is made vocal. It is stated by travellers, that when the negroes of Madeira wish to catch lizards, they accom pany the chase by whistling some tune, which has always the effect of drawing great numbers towards them. Stedman, in his "Expedition to Surinam," describes certain sibyls among the natives, who charm from the trees certain serpents, who will wreathe about the arms and neck of the pretended sorceress, listening to her voice. Sir William Jones, in his dissertations on the musical modes of the Hindus, presents us seve ral anecdotes of venomous snakes beinc: charmed with 16* 370 Mosaics. the sound of the lute, etc. If animals are thus affected by the magic of music, it cannot be a matter of sur prise that it should have such witching power over the " paragon of animals." Who can listen to the soul- stirring melody of his national anthem without emo tions of exultation and pleasure? Who would not confess to the deep inspiration of the scene, when the solemn cadences of the organ-peal reverberates along the vaulted aisles of the venerable cathedral ; or when the gorgeous bursts of harmony which absorb our every sense, from the grand oratorio, like the choral voice of waters, breaks upon us in all its magnficence and splendor ? " When Jubal struck the chorded shell, His listening brethren throng d around, And, wondering, on their faces fell To worship that celestial sound ; Less than a God, they thought, there could not dwell Within the hollow of that shell, That sung so sweetly and so well." * Justly may it be said that music has its origin m the sweetest emotions of the human breast. It is not the issue of the cold conceptions of intellect. It is inspiration the inspiration of the heart, to utter its joys, or bewail and yet console its woes. It is the language, not of thought, but of affection. Maternal tenderness vibrates upon its voice, and -infantile help lessness is soothed with its sound. The lorn lover woos by its potent spell, and pours the tale of his sorrows or his hopes into the not unwilling ear of his listening maid. * Dryden. The Magic of Music. 371 It is music that inflames the patriotic ardor of the foot-weary soldier, marching to deadly strife with his country s foes. It is the ballads of the nation that give tone to popular sentiment, and add force to its laws. In a yet more exalted sphere of influence, it is music which renders vocal the praises of the sanctuary, and the devotions of the worshipper. The fire-side circle, too, is witness to its softening and uniting influences, its joy awakening power and sympathetic charm. What glad sunshine gleams through the following flowing stanzas : " I love to sing when I am glad, Song is the echo of my gladness ; I love to sing when I am sad, Till song makes sweet my very sadness ; Tis pleasant time when voices chime To some sweet rhyme in concert only ; And song to me is company, Good company, when I am lonely. " Whene er I greet the morning light, My song goes forth in thankful numbers ; And, mid the shadows of the night, I sing me to my welcome slumbers : My heart is stirred by each glad bird, Whose notes are heard in summer s bowers ; And song gives birth to friendly mirth, Around the hearth in wintry hours. " Man first learned song in Paradise, From the bright angels o er him singing ; And in our home above the skies, Glad anthems are forever ringing : 372 Mosaics. God lends his ear, well pleased to hear The songs that cheer his children s sorrow ; Till day shall break, and we shall wake Where love will make unfading morrow. " Then let me sing while yet I may, Like him God loved, the sweet-toned Psalmist, Who found in harp, and holy lay, The charm that keeps the spirit calmest : For sadly here I need the cheer, While sinful fear with promise blendeth ; Oh ! how I long to join the throng, Who sing the song that never endeth !" * "At the triumph of the hosts of the Lord, the heroic soul of Miriam kindled into song. When the demon of madness attacked the unhappy Saul, naught could soothe him save the gentle harp of the minstrel-shep herd. With the sound of music, tumultuous as the voice of many waters, was the temple of Solomon con secrated. Amid music, glad and jubilant, was announced to the wandering shepherds the advent of the infant Redeemer ; and on that sacred night, the eve of the crucifixion, the Saviour himself hallowed music by singing a hymn with his disciples. " Thus, music, celestial visitant ! so familiarize us with thy high and saintly language in this lower sphere, that we may be the better purified and prepared to join in the new song, in that clime whence thou hast thy source !" f "There is in souls a sympathy with sounds, And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave ; * Geo. W. Bethune. t Garrett. Magic of Music. 373 Some chord in unison with what we hear Is touched within us, and the heart replies." Vocal music is coeval with creation, since "the morn ing stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Said a writer of the sixteenth century : " I ever held this sentence of the poet as a canon of my creede, That whom God loveth not, they love not music. " * " All our profoundest feelings are in their nature lyrical :" even the simple ditties sung by sainted mothers live perpetuated in memory and exert upon the heart a spell of strange enchantment. Yes, music is the mys terious key of memory, unlocking the hoarded treasures of the heart the " voice of the irrevocable past." " The sun-bright hopes of early youth Love, in its first deep form of truth, And dreams of life s delightful morn, Are on thy seraph-pinions borne. Enchantress sweet of smiles and tears Spell of the dreams of banished years T is thine to bid sad hearts be gay, Yet chase the smiles of mirth away ; Joy s sparkling eye in tears to steep, Yet bid the mourner cease to weep." f No other art so reveals the sublime emotions of the human soul no art so depicts the glories of nature, the delights of contemplation, the character of nations, the whirl of passion, and the cry of suffering. Hope, fear, regret, despair, devotion, enthusiasm, faith, doubt, * T. Morley, 1589. t Alaric A. Watts. 374 Mosaics. glory, peace all these, and more, music gives us, and takes away from us again, according to its genius and our own capacity." * Its soothing influence upon the feelings is beautifully expressed in the lines of jj*Ueg : " Tis the silver key to the fountain of tears Where the spirit drinks till the brain runs wild ; The softest grave of a thousand fears Where their mother, Care, like a sleepy child Is laid asleep on flowers." The Bard of Erin has also no less felicitously given utterance to the same truth : " Music ! oh ! how faint, how weak, Language fades before thy spell ! Why should Feeling ever speak, When thou can st breathe her Soul so well ? Friendship s balmy words may feign, Love s are even more false than they; Oh ! tis only Music s strain Can sweetly soothe, and not betray !" Music, although addressed to the ear, is not merely sensual, any more than literature, which is addressed to the eye ; since we derive feelings and ideas in each instance through the medium of sense. Musical tones, indeed, often speak a language to the soul more elo quent and richer in meaning than words could express. " Nothing," it has been observed, " is merely sensual which makes a lasting spiritual impression upon us; * George Sand. The Magic of Music. 375 and those who deny to music such a power, have not heard its sublimest strains, or have not the capacity to appreciate them." " The musician is the wizard : his instrument is the talisman, it is full of conjurations, out from it he draws his witchery, he puts his spell upon all around him, he chains them in the slavery of delight, and he is the only despot that rules over willing captives." lines are as true as they are terse : " The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus :" " A pathetic ballad can move a multitude, but few among ten thousand would but faintly appreciate the choral verse of Dryden s c Alexander s Feast, or the might of Handel, or the magic of Beethoven. The direct relation of music is not to ideas, but emotions. Music, in the works of its greatest masters, is more marvellous, more mysterious than poetry." * The mu sic of patriotism is simple so is the music of poetry both are the more eloquent. " Most of us have experienced the luxury of tears when listening to an old ballad. We know an old man who, having lived a long career of vice and crime, was at length banished from his country ; and who, while undergoing his period of banishment amidst the wilds and jungles of a distant land, heard in the summer * Giles. 376 Mosaics. eventide a sweet voice, singing in his own language the very song which had lulled him to his infant slum ber, when he knew crime but by name, and knew it only to abhor. It had been sung, too, by the cradle of an infant sister, one who had died young, and now was in heaven ; the mother, too, was no more. "But the song the old song had not lost its in fluence over him yet. Back came trooping upon him the old memories which had so long slumbered down there in the unconsumed depths of his heart ; the mother and the father ; the household gathering ; the old school-house ; the time-worn, church, half hidden by the old yew-trees, where he had first heard the Bible read, all came back upon him as fresh as if it were yesterday ; and overpowered by his feelings, he gave vent to them in a flood of tears. And then the old man grew calm, and his latter days were his best days ; and when the term of his punishment had ex pired, he came back to his father-land, and there in that old village graveyard, amid whose grassy hillocks he played and gambolled, and where the mother and her little ones were sleeping, he laid down his weary limbs, and sank peacefully away into a common grave." * ^IjaclierajJ thus writes : " Music is irresistible ; its char ities are countless ; it stirs the feeling to love, peace, friendship, as scarce any moral agent can. The songs of Beranger are hymns of love and tenderness ; I have seen great whiskered Frenchmen, warbling the bonne Yie- ille, the Soldats au pas, au pas, with tears rolling down their moustaches. At a Burns festival, I have seen * Eliza Cook s Journal. The Magic of Music. 377 Scotchmen singing Burns, while the drops twinkled on their furrowed cheeks ; as each rough hand was flung out to grasp its neighbor s ; while early scenes and sacred recollections, and dear and delightful memories of the past came rushing back at the sound of the familiar words and music, and the softened heart was full of love, and friendship, and home. If tears are the alms o gentle spirits and may be counted as sure they may among the sweetest of life s charities of that kindly sensibility, and sweet emotion, which exhibits itself at the eyes, I know no such provocation as humor. It is an irresistible sympathizer ; it surprises you into compassion ; you are laughing and disarmed, and sud denly forced into tears. " I heard a humorous balladist not long since, a min strel with wool on his head, and an ultra-Ethiopian complexion, who performed a negro ballad, that I con fess moistened these spectacles in the most unexpected manner. I have gazed at dozens of tragedy queens, dying on the stage, and expiring in appropriate blank verse, and I never wanted to wipe them. They have looked up, with deep respect be it said, at many scores of clergymen in the pulpit, and without being dimmed ; and behold a vagabond, with a corked face and a banjo, sings a little song, strikes a wild note, which set the heart thrilling with happy pity." llcmssmtT says : " The musician will not only agitate the sea, animate the flame of a conflagration, make rivu lets to flow, the rain to fall, and torrents to swell but he will paint the horrors of a boundles-s desert, calm the tempest, and render the air tranquil and serene. 378 Mosaics. He will not directly represent these things, but by the power of music he will excite in the soul the very same movement which we feel in seeing them." Music is said to bear the same relation to poetry, that poetry does to language ; and it is styled by a Ger man author, " the poetry of sound, the sweet harmo- nizer of society, the chief luxury of life, and the great est softener and civilizer of man s harsh nature." " If in the breast tumultuous joys arise, Music her soft, assuasive voice applies ; Or when the Soul is pressed with cares, Exalts her in enliv ning airs. Warriors she fires with animated sounds, Pours balm into the bleeding lover s wounds ; Melancholy lifts her head, Morpheus rouses from his bed, Sloth unfolds her arms and wakes, List ning Envy drops her snakes ; Intestine war no more our passions wage, And giddy factions bear away their rage."* "How nobly music mingles with the lives of the good and great ! In early youth, Luther endeavored to support himself by singing in the streets. This he quaintly calls bread music. In later years his heroic spirit found scope in hymns of devotion, and when his great work of the Reformation was finished, these sacred melodies were sung by the tearful multitude that clustered around his coffin. What a sublime pic ture does Milton present, seated at his organ, raising those sightless orbs, whose darkness only made the * Pope. The Magic of Music. 379 light within him more bright, while his aspirations found a response in the solemn strain. Haydn was wont to muse upon God s goodness until the fire burned, and then he penned those devotional compo sitions which have kindled a like flame in countless hearts. Mary Stuart s captivity was cheered by her lute ; and Galileo turned from the abstruse researches of science to the refreshment of music. It is related of Marie Antoinette, that when standing before her inhuman judges, she thrummed the bar with her fin gers, as if it were a harp, and seemed endeavoring to support her courage by wandering, in fancy, through some remembered melody. The wild fancy of Salva- tor expatiated in the boundless domain of sound, not less than amid the forest scenes of the Apennines. Mozart, we are told, was a king at the piano, though inadequate elsewhere. His love for Constance Weber found splendid expression in an opera ; while the shadow of death lost its gloom in the fervor of soul with which he composed his mysterious requiem. Old Walton, while at his favorite pastime, cheered by the singing of birds, was wont to ejaculate, * Lord, what music hast thqu provided for thy saints in heaven, when thou affordest bad men such music on earth ! How characteristic of Thomson, that he loved to lean out of the window at Richmond, and listen to the nightingales, through the long summer nights; arid what a genial resource proved Goldsmith s flute, in his wanderings over the continent." " Music ! whate cr it be, whose subtile power Steals to the soul, as dew into the flower 380 Mosaics. A circling gush of thin and tremulous air, Like quick expanding wave-struck waters bear, Dying when past, as some frail spoken spell To rove, a ghost, in memory s shadowy cell ; An essence, like electric flame, whose light Wakes, sparkling only at Art s touch of might ; A sky-born messenger on silvery wing, Floating or sweeping, a triumphant thing, But lost the instant that its course is o er, Like meteor flash or bubbles on the shore Whate er it be, twas given when time began To soothe creation s heart, and ravish man. A world embracing language all might know To prompt joy s smile and chase the tear of woe. 1 "All the poets have sung to this divinity; crime- stained and hardened men have wept under its influ ence, and the hearts of dear innocent children have been stirred by it to a painful rapture that left them half in terror. I remember that once, writes a con temporary, during a visit at the house of a friend, a pale, spiritual boy prayed of his mother, with the good night kiss, not to sing any more songs when he had gone to his bed, for the sound made his heart ache, and he could not sleep. Beautiful boy ! He did not know that it was the voice of unembodied beauty the whis per of an angel the sign of a great unutterable, that made his sensitive soul quiver. The frail finite could not bear the thrillings of the infinite. Something in kind must have been felt by Jfcan: |JauI |litljta: when he said of music Away ! away ! thou speakest to me of things which, in all my endless life, I have found not, and shall not find. The Magic of Music. 381 There is every variety of music, and every heart leaps at its own particular quality and style of harmony. I own to a spell in the sorrowful refrain of the whip- poor-will, and the thin, regretful cry of the cricket ; in the rustling of leaves when autumn is trailing her gorgeous robes through the woods. I love a simple, soul-sung ballad, and there is a holy grandeur in the pealing organ and anthem ; but I am never so sur rounded and pavilioned with the subtile enchantment of music as when listening to a fine opera. Though I understand no word that is uttered, there is a language in which each pure, flexible solo, and wild, undulating chorus, that appeals to my inmost soul. No other music so hovers over and broods down upon so lifts and depresses me." * Dr. Chalmers high estimate of sacred music, may surprise some unmusical Christians ; he said " One of the most essential preparations for eternity is delight in praising God : a higher acquirement, I think, than even delight and devotedness in prayer." " Oh, what a gentle ministrant is music To piety to mild, to penitent piety ! Oh, it gives plumage to the tardy prayer That lingers in our lazy earthly air, And melts with it to Heaven." f Music, like paintings and statuary, refines, and ele vates, and sanctifies. Song is the language of gladness, and it is the utterance of devotion. But, coming lower down, it is physically beneficial : it rouses the circula tion, wakes up bodily energies, and diffuses life and * U. S. Mag. t Milman. 382 Mosaics. animation around. Does a lazy man ever sing ? Song is the outlet of mental and physical activity, and increases both by its exercises. No child has com pleted a religious education who has not been taught to sing the songs of Zion. No part of our religious worship is sweeter than this. In David s day it was a practice and a study. "I remember the margin of a stream, in one of those low, sheltered valleys on Salisbury Plain, where the monks of former ages had planted chapels and built hermits cells. Near by was a little parish, but tall elms and quivering alders hid it from the sight ; when, all on a sudden, I was startled by the sound of the full organ pealing on the ear, accompanied by rustic voices, and the welling choir of village maids and children. It rose, indeed, like an exhalation of rich distilled per fumes. The dew from a thousand pastures were gathered in its softness ; the silence of a thousand years spoke in it. It came upon the heart like the calm beauty of death; fancy caught the sound, and faith mounted on it to the skies. It filled the valley like a mist, and still poured out its endless chant; and it swells upon the ear, and wraps me in a golden trance, drowning the noisy tumult of the world." * " Then let the pealing organ blow, To the full-voiced choir below In service high and anthem clear As may with sweetness through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstasies, And bring all heaven before mine eyes." * Hazlitt. THE BRIGHT SIDE. rare faculty of looking at the bright side of things, produces to some extent, those effects which the alchemist ascribed to the fabled philosopher s stone ; for it often transmutes seeming evil into real good. That life has its shadows as well as its sunshine that its joys are tempered and often brightened by the contrast of its sorrow, is not only the result of a necessary law, but one eminently conducive to our so cial well-being. Umrgfellofo observes, " the rays of hap piness, like those of light, are colorless when unbroken." The great panacea for the seeming accidents, ills and vicissitudes of life is a spirit of cheerful acquiescence. If we would, as the optimist, view life philosophically, and accept it as a boon and benison from heaven, we ought to regard its ever- varying phases, and especially its bet ter, as well as bright experiences as alike beneficent in their design for the maturing and developing of our moral nature. Said f eremg Caglor : " No man is more miserable than he that hath no adversity ; that man is not tried whether he be good or bad; and God never crowns 384: Mosaics. those virtues which are only faculties and dispositions ; but every act of virtue is an ingredient into reward God so presses us for heaven." " God made both tears and laughter, and both for kind purposes, for as laughter enables mirth and sur prise to breathe freely, so tears enable sorrow to vent itself patiently. Tears hinder sorrow from becoming despair and madness, and laughter is one of the very privileges of reason, being confined to the human spe cies."* " Whatever causes laughter determines whether laugh ter is good or bad. If it is the expression of levity or vanity, it is frivolous. If it be the expression of moral feeling and it often is it is as reverent as tears are. In a natural state, tears and laughter go hand in hand ; for they are twin-born. Like two children sleeping in one cradle, when one wakes and stirs, the other wakes also."f In the words of an old author, we may add that, " Man is as permanently a creature of laughter as he is of tears ; but as the source of his tears is more deep ly seated in his nature than the sensibilities of laugh ter, the agencies that reach the fountains of weeping are at once more simple and more intense, therefore more uniform and more enduring, than those which move the spirit, or rather, perhaps, the nerves of mirth- fulness." In the joyous hours of childhood, our little griefs are soon forgotten in our joys, but in maturer life we ungrate fully reverse the rule, although their proportions usually remain unchanged. The first cries of the infant, ap- * Leigh Hunt. t H. W. Beecher. The Bright Side. 385 pear to be those of pain ; at the age of forty days children begin to weep ; before this period no tears are shed. At the same age, also, they begin to laugh ; the appearance of smiling prior to this period, being only an unconscious and involuntary action of the muscles, caused, as some suppose, by the contact of the air. Laughter is not always a certain index to the state of the heart within. Many kind, and many enraged hearts are driven to the resource of laughing to con ceal their tears. JT0rb ^groti said of himself " That if he laughed at any living thing, Twas that he might not weep." Byron, when in company, appeared light-hearted and cheerful, but when rallied upon his melancholy style of poesy, confessed that he was at heart the most miserable of men. Neither does weeping always indi cate sadness of heart. " Old men," says Jpes Cartes, " often weep for joy, children rarely from delight." The measure of joy and grief can never be estimated, because the depth of the human heart can never be sounded. The duration of these emotions differ in dif ferent persons, and vary according to their intensity. Formed as we are, our pains and griefs sul serve a use ful purpose. In our present imperfect state, they are to our pleasures what light is to darkness. " There is a sacreduess in tears. They are not a mark of weak- nsss but of power. They speak more eloquently than ton thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of un- s\jeakable love. If there were wanting any arguments 17 386 Mosaics. to prove that man is not mortal, I would look for it in the strange convulsive emotions of the breast, when the soul has been deeply agitated, when the fountains of feeling are welling-up, when the tears are gushing forth in crystal streams. Oh, speak not harshly to the stricken one, weeping in silence. Break not the deep solemnity by rude laughter or intrusive footsteps. De spise not woman s tears they are more eloquent than words. Scoff not if the stern heart of manhood is some times melted to tears they are what help to elevate him above the brute. I love to see tears of affection. They are painted tokens but still most holy. There is a pleasure in tears a solemn pleasure." * " There are times when some great sorrow has torn the mind away from its familiar supports and laid level those defences which in prosperity seemed so stable when the most rooted convictions of the reason seem rottenness and the blossom of our heavenward imagi nation goes up before the blast as dust when our works, and joys, and hopes, with all their multitude and pomp, and glory, seem to go down together into the pit, and the soul is left as a garden that hath no water, and as a wandering bird cast out of the nest in that day of trouble, and of treading down and per plexity, the noise of voices, the mirth of the tabret, and the joy of the harp, are silent as the grave. Blessed is the man who, when cast into this utter wretchedness, far away from all creatures and from all comfort, can yet be willing, amid all his tears and his anguish, there to remain as long as God shall please." f * Dr. Johnson. t British Quarterly Rev. The Bright Side. 387 A tear-drop ! " It is a little thing, glistening but a moment a pearly drop in the window of the soul but who may know the language it speaks ? Who can tell what bitter thought has prompted it to flow ? It is eloquent in its silence, for it has power that many words have not, to start afresh in other hearts the fountains of feeling that have long been dry. " Tears of childhood ! how innocent and pure ! Some bitter drop has fallen in the clear fountain of its guile less heart, and started the gushing stream. But they are quickly chased away by the sweet smiles of return ing joy. The dewdrops of morning linger not long the sunbeams kiss them all away. " There are hours when beloved friends die, or when misfortune s rough hand has swept away our brightest joys, when in dark hours tears will rise. Then let them flow, for the heart s deep fountains are embittered by grief, and they must have an outlet. " There is the tear of sympathy that falls for the sor- row of another heart. Such were shed near the grave of Lazarus, when Jesus wept. Ah ! strong is the tie when friendship binds heart to its kindred heart and seals it with a tear. " Precious in the sight of God are the tears of re pentance for sin." " Be not thy tears too harshly chid . Kepine not at the rising sigh ; Who, if he might, would always bid The breast be still, the cheek be dry ? " How little of ourselves we know Before a grief the heart has felt ! 388 Mosaics. The lessons that we learn of woe May brace the mind as well as melt. " The energies too stern for mirth ; The reach of thought, the strength of will, Mid cloud and tempest have their birth, Though blight and blast their course fulfill. "Love s perfect triumph never crowned The hope uncheckered by a pang ; The gaudiest wreaths with thorns are bound, And Sappho wept before she sang. " Tears at each sweet emotion flew, They wait on pity s gentle claim, On admiration s fervid glow, On piety s seraphic flame. " Tis only when it moans and fears, The loaded spirit feels forgiven, And through the mist of falling tears, We catch the clearest glimpse of heaven." * There is a luxury of feeling in tears of deep sorrow, because the heart s anguish is thereby lessened, and its griefs distilled as the summer shower when suc ceeded by the sunshine. Tears have been imaged by the night, as laughter has been by the day ; but there is an intermediate hour of grace and beauty we called twilight, and this may represent the still more fascinat ing smile. A smile does wonders in lighting up the dark corners of a man s heart ; it has power to electrify his whole being; its fascination is more potent than many seem to admit, or we should not so often see so * Lord Morpeth. The Bright Side. 389 many lugubrious visages where sunny smiles seem to find no place of lodgment. Life is stern enough, at the best, it is not worth while to shroud its path way with frowns ; better far to scatter sunshine and flowers. " As welcome as sunshine In every place, Is the beaming approach Of a good-natured face. " As genial as sunshine, Like warmth to impart, Is a good-natured word From a good-natured heart." All smiles are not alike. " The cheerfulness of vanity is not like the smile of love. The smile of gratified pride is not like the radiance of goodness and truth. The rains of summer fall alike upon trees and shrubs. But when the storm passes, and on every leaf hangs a drop, each gentle puff of wind brings down a pretty shower, and every drop brings with it something of the nature of the leaf or blossom on which it hung ; the road-side leaf yields dust, the walnut leaf bitterness, some flowers poison, while the grape-blossom, the rose and the sweet brier lend their aroma to the twinkling drops, and send them down perfumed. And so it is with smiles, which every heart perfumes according to its nature selfishness is acrid; pride, bitter; good will, sweet and fragrant." * * H. W. Beecher. 390 Mosaics. " Oh ! smiles have power, a world of good To fling around us ever ; Then let us wear their golden beams, And quench their ardor never! For while a smile illumes the eye, And wreathes the lip of beauty, The task of life must ever be, A pure and pleasant duty." Good humor is a bright color in the web of life ; but self-denial only can make it a fast color. A person who is the slave of selfishness has so many wants of his own to be supplied, so many interests of his own to support and defend, that he has no leisure to study the wants and interests of others. It is impossible that he should be happy himself, or make others around him so. Good humor is the clear blue sky of the soul, on which every star of talent will shine more clearly, and the sun of genius encounter no vapors in its passage. It is the most exquisite beauty of a fine face, a redeem ing grace in a homely one. It is like the green in a landscape, harmonizing in every color, mellowing the light, and softening the hue of the dark ; or like a flute in a full concert of instruments, a sound, not at first discovered by the ear, yet filling up the breaks in the concord with its deep melody. It is not great calamities that embitter existence ; it is the petty vexations, the small jealousies, little dis appointments, and minor miseries, that make the heart heavy and the temper sour. Anger is a pure waste of vitality. It is always foolish and always ungraceful, except in some very rare cases, when it is kindled by The Bright Side. 391 seeing wrong* done to another ; and even that noble rage seldom mends the matter. "N"o man does his best except when he is cheerful. A light heart maketh nimble hands, and keeps the mind free and alert. No misfortune is so great as one that sours the temper. Until cheerfulness is lost, nothing is lost." A cheerful face is nearly as good for an invalid as healthy weather. To make a sick man think he is dying, all that is necessary is to look half dead your self. Hope and despair are as catching as cutaneous complaints. " To be happy, the passion must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy. A propensity to hope and joy is real riches one to fear and sorrow, real poverty." * " Mirth is the medicine of life, It cures its ills, it calms its strife ; It softly smoothes the brow of care, And writes a thousand graces there." Mirth is like the flash of lightning that breaks through the gloom of the clouds and glitters for a moment ; cheerfulness keeps up a daylight in the soul, filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity. There is nothing equal to a cheerful and even mirthful conversation, for restoring the tone of mind and body, when both are overcharged. Some great and good men, on whom very heavy cares and toils have been laid, manifest a constitutional tendency to * Hume. 392 Mosaics. relax into mirth when their work is over. Narro w minds denounce the incongruity ; large hearts o^ n God s goodness in the fact, and rejoice in the wise pr )- vision made for prolonging useful lives. Mirth, after exhaustive toil, is one of Nature s instinctive recuper i- tive efforts to soothe and re-invigorate the mind. Yc u cannot too sternly reprobate a frivolous life ; but if tl e life be earnest for God or man, with here and there a layer of mirthfulness protruding, a soft bedding to receive heavy cares which otherwise would crush tl e spirit, to snarl against the sports of mirth, may be tl e easy and useless occupation of a small man, who cannot take in at one view the whole circumference of a larg e one, but it is false philosophy. Mirthfulness has a great power over the excited feel ings and the angry irritations of men : it makes them more generous and more just. It is often more power ful with men than conscience or reason ; and ^jjaksptare asserts that it " bars a thousand harms and lengthens life." It has been well said, however, that "mirth should be the embroidery of conversation, not the web the ornament of the mind, not the furniture." " Laughter is not, therefore, a foolish thing. Some times there is even wisdom in it. Solomon himself admits there is a time to laugh, as well as a time to mourn. Man only laughs man, the highest organized being ; and hence the definition that has been proposed of him, a laughing animal. Certainly, it defines him as well as a cooking animal, a tool-making animal, a c money-making animal, a c political animal, or such like. Laughter very often shows the bright side of a The Bright Side. 393 man. It brings out his happier nature, and shows of what sort of stuff he is really made. Somehow we feel as if we never thoroughly know a man until we hear him laugh. We do not feel at home with him till then. We do not mean a mere snigger, but a good, round, hearty laugh. The solemn, sober visage, like a Sun day s dress, tells nothing of the real man. He may be very silly, or very profound ; very cross, or very jolly. Let us hear him laugh, and we can decipher him at once, and tell how his heart beats. We are disposed to suspect the man who never laughs. At all events, there is a repulsion about him which we cannot get over. Lavater says, Shun that man who never laughs, who dislikes music or the glad face of a child. This is what everybody feels, and none more than children, who are quick at reading characters ; and their strong instinct rarely deceives them." * " Is there anything like the ringing laugh of an inno cent, happy child? Can any other music so echo through the heart s inner chambers? It is sympa thetic, too, beyond other melodies. When the father sits absorbed over his book, which seems to concentrate every faculty, he hears his little boy laughing in his sports, and laughs also, he knows not wherefore. The bright being, continually gathering intelligence, casts around us gems of thought and pearls of affection, till our paths seem paved with precious stones from Hea ven s treasury. No day of storms is dark where he is no wintry evening long. A young child is a full fountain of delight to the house and heart." f * Blackwood. t Mrs. Sigourney. 17* 394 Mosaics. A woman has no natural grace more bewitching than a sweet laugh. It is like the sound of flutes on the water. It leaps from her heart in a clear, sparkling rill; and the heart that hears it echoes back its sweet music. Have you ever pursued an unseen fugitive through trees, led on by her airy laugh now here, now there, now lost, now found ? We have. Some times it comes to us in the midst of care, or sorrow, or irksome business. How much we owe to that sweet laugh ! It turns the prose of our life into poetry, and changes its shadows into sunshine and flowers. "I love a laugh this world would be At best a dreary dwelling, If heart could never speak to heart, Its pleasures telling. " Then frown not at a wild, gay laugh, Or chide the merry hearted, A cheerful heart and smiling face Can ne er be parted." Let us laugh then since there is " a time to laugh, as well as a time to weep" and care not for the censure cynics or the crusty face of care. "Laughter! tis a healing balm, Good to bring a peaceful calm, To the sorrow-brooding soul ; Then, oh, let its echoes roll." " Think of a babe without laughter as it is its first intelligence! The creature shows the divinity of its origin and end by smiling upon us. Yes, smiles are its The Bright Side. 305 first talk with the world, smiles its first answer that it understands. And then a worldly wisdom comes upon the little thing, it crows, it chuckles, it grins, and shakes in its nurse s arms, or in waggish humor, play ing bo-peep with the breast, it reveals its high destiny, declared to him with ears to hear the heirdom of im mortality. Let materialists blaspheme as gingerly and acutely as they will ; they must find confusion in laugh ter. Man may take a triumph, and stands upon his broad grins ; for he looks around the world and his in nermost soul sweetly tickled with the knowledge, tells him that he of all creatures laughs. Let man, then, send a loud ha! ha! through the universe and be greatful for the privilege." * d^arlgle remarks : " No man who has once heartily and decidedly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad. How much lies in laughter the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man! Some men wear an everlasting barren simper; in the smile of others lies a cold glitter as of ice. How few are able to indulge what may be called laughing! most only titter and sniffer from the throat outwards, or at best produce some whiffling husky cachinnation, as if they were laughing through wool. Of none such, comes good. The man who cannot laugh is not only 1 fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils, but his whole life is already a treason and a stratagem." " After all, what a capital, kindly, honest, jolly, glo rious, good thing a laugh is ! What a tonic ! What a digester! What a febrifuge ! What an exerciser * of * Douglas Jerrold. 396 Mosaics. evil spirits ! Better than a walk before breakfast, or a nap after dinner. How it shuts the mouth of malice, and opens the brow of kindness ! Whether it disco vers the gums of infancy or age, the grinders of folly, or the pearls of beauty; whether it racks the sides aid deforms the countenance of vulgarity, or deep-lines the visage, or moistens the eye of refinement in all its phases, and on all faces, contorting, relaxing, over whelming, convulsing, throwing the human form into happy shaking and quaking of idiotcy, and turning the human countenance into something appropriate to Bil ly Botton s transformation ; under every circumstance, and everywhere, a laugh is a glorious thing. Like a thing of beauty, it is a joy forever. There is no remorse in it. It leaves no sting ; except in the sides, and that goes off. Even a single unparticipated lauch is a great affair to witness. But it is seldom sing] 3. It is more infectious than scarlet fever. You cann >t gravely contemplate a laugh. If there is one laughtc r, and one witness, there forthwith are two laughteis. And so on. The convulsion is propagated like soun 1. What a thing it is when it becomes epidemic !" * Sardonic laughter derives its origin from a herb sa: d to be found in Sardinia which resembles parsley, ar d which, according to an ancient authority, " causes tho ;e who eat it to die of laughter." Homer first, and others after him, call laughter, which conceals some noxious design, Sardonican. " Laughter ! tis the poor man s plaster, Covering up each sad disaster. * Dubliu Univ. Mag. The Bright Side. Laughing, he forgets his troubles Which, though real, seem but bubbles. Laughter ! tis a seal of nature Stamped upon the human creature. Laughter, whether loud or mute, Tells the human kind from brute. Laughter! tis Hope s living voice, Bidding us to make our choice, And to cull from thorny bowers, Leaving thorns and taking flowers."* Chesterfield has been loudly laughed at with leathern lungs for his anathema against laughter. But though often wrong, there his lordship was right, and for that one single rule of manners, he deserves a monument, as having been one of the benefactors of his species. Old |Jorib s code is " Let smiles mantle, and that sweet, soft, low sound be heard, the susurrus : let there be a many-voiced quiet music, like that of the summer moon light sea, when the stars are in its breast. But laugh ter loud peals of laughter these he likens to break ers blind breakers on a blind coast, wiiere no verdure grows, except that of tangle, and whatever is made into that vulgarest of all commodities, kelp." ITubujig SKftk, in one of his graceful Novellen, remarks on the great amount of character there often is in a laugh. " You know no man," he affirms, " till you have heard him laugh till you know when and how he will laugh. There are occasions,^ he adds, " and there are humors, when a man with whom we have been long familiar, shall quite startle and repel us, by breaking * M. L. s. 398 Mosaics. out into a laugh which comes manifestly right from his heart, and which yet we had never heard before." " A man would neither choose to be a hermit nor a buffoon ; human nature is not so miserable as that we should be always melancholy ; nor so happy, as that we should be always merry. In a word, a man should not live as if there was no God in the world ; nor, at the same time, as if there were no men in it." To the gravest of the grave it is not forbidden by nature or religion to say, u J aime le rire, Non le rire ironique aux sarcasmes moqueurs, Mais le doux rire honnete ouvrant bouches et coeurs, Qui montre en meme temps des ames et des perles." Hence in one of his criticisms on a comic work of dubious merit, fjnrtkg Colmbge affirms, that a com position which excites laughter mixed with kindliness can never be worthless, for kindness is always worth something, and " laughter is always good when it does not proceed from scorn." It was a saying of the mother of Goethe, that he who laughs can commit no deadly sin. Caesar mistrusts Cassius, because that lean conspirator " loves no plays, As thou dost, Antony ; he hears no music ; Seldom he laughs." . In the course of a modern rhymester s "Reasons for Risibility" we read : The Bright Side. 399 "I ve seen a bishop dance a reel, And a sinner fast and pray, A knave at top of fortune s wheel, And a good man cast away. " Wine have I seen your grave ones quaff Might set our fleet afloat, But I never heard a hearty laugh From out a villain s throat." Le mediant, says De Maistre, ri>est jamis comique. And it has been observed that the converse is equally true : le comique, le vrai comique, n est jamais me diant. As instances of the assertion that some of those who have been richest in wit and humor, have been among the simplest and kindest-hearted of men, ^rcljbeaccw Jare mentions the names of Fuller, Bishop, Earle, La Fontaine, Matthes Claudius, Charles Lamb. A laugh, he justly contends, to be joyous, must flow from a joyous heart : and without kindness there can be no true joy. And what a dull, plodding, tramping, clanking, as he says, would the ordinary intercourse of so ciety be, without wit to enliven and brighten it ! "When two men meet, they seem to be kept at bay through the estranging effects of absence, until some sportive sally opens their hearts to each other. Nor does anything spread cheerfully so rapidly over a whole party, or an assembly of people, however large. Reason expands the soul of the philosopher; imagination glorifies the poet, and breathes a breath of spring through the young and genial : but, if we take into account the numberless glances and gleams whereby wit light ens our everyday life, I hardly know what power 400 Mosaics. ministers so bountifully to the innocent pleasures of mankind." Johnson s laugh was as remarkable as any circum stance in his manner. It was a kind of good-humored growl. Tom Davies described it drolly enough : " He laughs like a rhinoceros." That picture of Johnson laughing his way home, and startling London night from its propriety, as he vented peal after peal while he held on by a post all at the notion of Bennett Lang- ton having just made his will may remind us, in the irresistible abandon of its indulgence, of the similar "immoderate fits" of a very different man, in tempera ment and opinions, the Rev. Sydney Smith, " primate" in the English "hierarchy" of wits. &bomas poore records in his diary a visit with Sydney to Deville s, the phrenologist and speaks there of the jovial can on s " inextinguishable and contagious laughter, which I joined in even to tears." But here is a pretty pen dant to Johnson holding by the post : " Left Lord John s with Sydney and Luttrell; and when we got to Cockspur street (having laughed all the way) we were all three seized with such convulsions of cachinnation at something (I forget what) which Sydney said, that we were obliged to separate, and reel each his own way with the fit." " The young they laugh. Laughs not the sky ? The winds, they laugh as they pass by; The sun, he laughs ; and nature s face Beams with a joyous laughing grace." "Kind words have been styled the bright flowers The Bright Side. 401 of existence : they make a paradise of home, however humble it may be. They are the jewelry of the heart the gems of the domestic circle the symbols of human love. " They never blister the tongue or lips ; and we have never heard of any mental trouble arising from this quarter. Though they do not cost much, yet they accomplish much they help one s own good nature, and good will. Soft words soften our own soul. Angry words are fuel to the flame of wrath, and make it blaze more fiercely." * Kind words are benedictions ; they are not only instruments of power, but of benevolence and courtesy ; blessings both to the speaker and hearer of them. They cost us less effort and produce usually much more profit than harsh words. Addison tells us, that "good breeding" is but an imitation, a substitute for good nature ; or afiability of temper reduced to an art. Pleasant words come bubbling up in a good-natured heart, like the freely gushing waters of a fountain. It is as easy to speak them as it is to breathe. They come forth as naturally, and easily, from the lips of kindness, as the rays from the sun. Kind words leap forth of themselves, and delight to fly away in every direction on their errands of love. They make the man happier that uses them. They react upon him. Pleasant words touch other people s hearts, and make them kind. They fall like flakes of fire on the cold and * Pascal. 402 Mosaics. selfish hearts of others not to scorch, but to melt not to irritate, but to subdue and shame people s cold ness and unkindness out of them. Under such words grim visages relax, their icy outlines are dissolved, and the soul that had been frozen to the core, gets thawed out ; and he who had the gloomy December on his vis age, is not long in getting a genial June in the place of it. "A bad temper is a curse to the possessor, and its influence most deadly wherever it is found. It is allied to martyrdom to be obliged to live with one of a com plaining temper. To hear one eternal round of com plaint and murmuring, to have every pleasant thought scared away by this evil spirit, is a sore trial. It is like the sting of a scorpion a perpetual nettle, destroy ing your peace, rendering life a burden. Its influence is deadly, and the purest and sweetest atmosphere is contaminated into a deadly miasma wherever this evil genius prevails. It has been said truly, that while we ought not to let the bad temper of others influence us, it would be as unreasonable to spread a blister upon the skin and not expect it to draw, as to think of a family not suffering because of the bad temper of any of its inmates. One string out of tune will destroy the music of an instrument otherwise perfect ; so if all the members of a church, neighborhood, and family, do not cultivate a kind and affectionate temper, there will be discord and every evil work." * " Yet the temper of mankind is so inconsistent, that he who to-day loads us with caresses, may to-morrow conceive for us a hatred which breathes nothing but * Steele. The Bright Side. 403 our ruin ; so that the confidence we have placed in a person, whom we consider as a valuable friend, may one day, when his sentiments for us change, forge those words which we have incautiously intrusted him with into arrows that may deeply wound us. The daily experience this world affords us, admits no doubt of the truth of this observation. However great our friendship or esteem may be of any man, prudence directs us to be very cautious, and to make our own bosoms only the repository of the latent secrets of our hearts. The old proverb truly says, "The words ^ of the wise man lie at the root of his tongue ; but those of a fool play on the tip of it." " Pour forth the oil pour boldly forth ; It will not fail, until Thou failest vessels to provide Which it may largely fill. Make channels for the streams of love, Where they may broadly run ; And love has ever flowing streams To fill them every one. For we must share, if we would keep That blessing from above ; Ceasing to give, we cease to have : Such is the law of love." * " The charm of expression arising from softened tem per or reopened intellect, often amply atones for the loss of form and coloring ; and consequently, to those who never could boast of advanced years, give much more than they take away. A sensitive person often * Dean Trench. 404: Mosaics. requires half a life to get used to this corporeal machine, to attain a wholesome indifference, both to its defects and perceptions, and to learn at last, what nobody would learn from any teacher but experience, that it is the mind alone which is of consequence ; that with good temper, sincerity, and a moderate stock of brains or even the two latter only any sort of body can, in time, be made useful, respectable, and agreeable, as a travelling dress for the soul. Many a one who was plain in youth thus grows pleasant and well looking in declining years. You will hardly ever find anybody not ugly in mind, who is repulsively ugly in person after middle life." * How beautiful is the simplicity of innocent, holy childhood, sleeping upon the mother s bosom, and dreaming of the angels, or playing beneath shady trees. Manhood, moving onward in a noble mission, possesses true beauty. And then old age the twilight of life when the stars of eternity begin to shine out from the far off heaven how beautiful it is ! Truly to appreciate the beautiful is the secret of a sunny spirit. It is this that will lighten the burdens of our checkered existence, and dissipate its shadows. It is the secret of happiness. " How does it convert even the infirmities of old a^e, O / which it cannot dissipate, into occasions of pleasanter anticipation ; as the sun at evening lines the thickest clouds with pearl and silver, and edges their masses with golden sheen ! And how does such a spirit, as the evidence and result of faith in Christ, and of * Mrs. Sigourney. The Bright Side. 405 delightful trust is the Divine Father, correspond with all that is sublime in holiness, and grand in self-devo tion, and powerful and uplifting in belief of truth ! How does it find its fitting and natural consummation, after life s day is done, amidst the rest and peace of Heaven ! Who does not desire to have a sunny spirit ? who does not covet the hallowing influence of Christianity ? that sweetener of life ; that beautiful essence, pervading our thoughts; that fruit of gentle submission to the divine wisdom ; that shadow of God s love reflected upon the heart? The bright side of life is that which catches the reflected light of heaven, and echoes back its harmo nies ; thus supplying a sweet antidote to the troubles and disturbing influences of earth. How great is the empire of joy which God has de signed for us in his infinite goodness. We spring into existence, and the varied seasons lavish upon our senses their variegated flowers and fruits. Hope gilds the future with its Iris hues, friendship redoubles our plea sures and alleviates otfr pains, and the glittering orbs of heaven are the bright heralds of a life of unalloyed happiness hereafter. Joy is the friend of innocence, but there are many specious counterfeits of pleasure with which the weak and unwary are beguiled. Who would drink poison to produce agreeable sensations ? Ipr- lojjnsott used to say that a habit of looking at the best side of every event is far better than a thousand pounds a year, $Jis|jop Jail quaintly remarks "for 406 Mosaics. every bad there might be a worse, and when one breaks his leg, let him be thankful it was not his neck." When Jxnxlon s library was on fire, " God be praised," he exclaimed, " that it is not the dwelling of some poor man." This is the true spirit of submission one of the most beautiful traits that adorn humanity. "A happy heart will ever be A crown of richest blessing ; Life is deprived of half its ills, A happy heart possessing. Then who oh ! who will troubles bear, Nor choose a happy heart to wear ? "A cheerful smile will drive away Each want so bleak and dreary ; Twill soothe the pangs of sickness, too, And cheer the sad and weary. Then who will proudly scorn oh ! who, The good a cheerful smile can do ? " A cheering word will ever be, A well of pleasure springing ; Like a joyous spring, all bright and gay, Sweet buds and flow rets bringing ; Sweet flowers of hope ! then let, who may, A cheering word in kindness say." " Contentment is a pearl of great price, and who ever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires, makes a wise and happy purchase." * ^ir JIjHijj Hibneg sums up contentment thus : " The highest point outward things can bring unto, is the contentment of the mind ; with which no estate * Balguy. The Bright Side. 407 can be poor without which all estates will be miser able." gnttcm quaintly remarks, " Smiles are much more becoming than frowns. This seems a natural encour agement to good humor ; as much as to say, if people have a mind to be handsome, they must not be peevish and untoward." " Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire, cut in alabaster ? Sleep when he wakes ? and creep into the jaundice By being peevish?"* " The discontented man is the murderer of his own happiness. He quits the substance to grasp at the shadow. He is maddened in his pursuit after happi ness, and despises the means by which it must be at tained. A contented mind is a perpetual feast ; but a discontented mind is a desolating disease." The most disagreeable persons one meets in society, are those who are always talking about their personal griefs and troubles especially those dyspeptic, green- spectacled gentlemen, who bore you with the history of their liver-complaints, and give you a catalogue rai- son?t6 of their digestive reminiscences during the last week. Groans and complaints, it has been truly said, are the worst possible staple of social intercourse. "Sympathy-fishers, who bait their hooks with evils, past or incurable, seldom enjoy a nibble. If you go hunting, let it be for smiles." A laugh, says Charles Lamb, is worth a hundred groans in any state of the market. * Shakspeare. 408 Mosaics. There is a way of looking cheerfully at little crosses, . and of trying to make the best of what is annoying. And there is another way of fretting at what can t be helped, and of making yourself and everybody else i ID comfort able by this constant snapping and snarling. And the worst of it is, this complaining and grumbling by and by, becomes a fixed habit, so that after awhile a person seems actually to find comfort in it. Jleal, the author of the " Charcoal Sketches," thus admirably takes off that class of persons who seem never so happy as when they are making themselves miserable : " How are you, Trepid? How do you feel to-day, Mr. Trepid ? " A great deal worse than I was, thank ee ; most dead ; I m obliged to you ; I m always worse than I was, and I don t think I was ever any better ; I m very sure, any how, I m not going to be any better; and for the future you may always know that I m worse, without asking any questions ; for the questions make me worse, if nothing else. " Why, Trepid, what is the matter with you ? " Nothing, I tell you, in particular, but a great deal is the matter with me in general ; and that s the dan ger, because we don t know what it is. That s what kills people, when they can t tell what it is ; that s what s killing me. My great grandfather died of it ; and so shall I. The doctors don t know ; they can t tell ; they say I m well enough when I m bad enough, and so there s no help. I m going off some of these days right after my grandfather, dying of nothing in particular, The Bright Side. 409 but of everything in general. That s what finishes our folks. * ^UUiam unbar, whom Sir Walter Scott so much admired, has the following stanza, which, as the poet died, at so early a period of the language as the year 1520, is almost a marvel of sweetness and harmony : "Be merry, man, and tak not sair in mind The wavering of this wretched world of sorrow ; To God be humble, to thy friend be kind, And with thy neighbor gladly lend and borrow ; His chance to-night, it may be thine to-morrow." A complaining spirit magnifies our troubles, in pro portion as it dilates upon them. The better plan is, gratefully to recount our pleasures by the way, which are too seldom the incentives of thankfulness. " I have of late," says Hamlet " (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of ex ercises : and, indeed, it goes so heavily Avith my dispo sition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory ; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o erhanging firmament, this majes- tical roof, fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congrega tion of vapors. What a piece of work is man ! How noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties ! in form, and moving, how express, and admirable ! in action, how like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a god ! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals ! and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust ? Man de li o-hts not me nor woman neither." 18 410 Mosaics. A genial humorist thus counsels his friend : " You are too apprehensive of your complaint. The best way in these cases is to keep yourself as ignorant as the world was before Galen, of the entire inner con struction of the animal man ; not to be conscious of a midriff; to hold kidneys to be an agreeable fiction ; to account the circulation of the blood an idle whimsy of Harvey s ; to acknowledge no mechanism not visible. For once, fix the seat of disorder, and your fancies flux into it like bad humors. Above all, take exercise, and avoid tampering with the hard terms of art. Desks are not deadly. It is the rnind, and not the limbs, that taints by long sitting. Think of the pa tience of the tailors ; think how long the Lord Chan cellor sits ; think of the brooding hen." * It is recorded of gt. Griffin, that when President of the Andover Theological Seminary, he convened the students at his room one evening, and told them he had observed that they were all growing thin and dys peptical from a neglect of the exercise of the duty of laughter, and he insisted upon it that they should go through a company drill in it then and there. The doctor was an immense man over six feet in height, with great amplitude of chest, and most magisterial manners. "Here," said he to the first, "you must practice ; now hear me !" and bursting out in a sono rous laugh, he fairly obliged his pupils 7 one by one, to join, till the whole were almost convulsed. "That will do for once," said the doctor, " and now mind you keep in practice !" * Charles Lamb. The Bright Side. 411 " There is something cordial about a fat man. Every body likes him, and he likes everybody. Your Ishma- elites are, in truth, a bareboned race ; a lank tribe they are, skeleton and bile. Food does a fat man good ; it clings to him ; it fructifies on him ; he swells nobly out, and fills a generous space in life. He is a living, walking minister of gratitude to the earth and the fullness there of; an incarnate testimony against the vanities of care; a radiant manifestation of the wisdom of good-humor. A fat man, therefore, almost in virtue of being a fat man, is, per se, a popular man, and commonly he deserves his popularity. In a crowded vehicle the fattest man will ever be most ready to make room. Indeed, he seems to be half sorry for his size, lest it be in the way of others ; but others would not have him less than he is, for his humanity is usually commensurate with his bulk. A fat man has abundance of rich juices. The hinges of his system are well oiled ; the springs of his being are noiseless ; and so he goes on his way re joicing, in full contentment and placidity. A fat man feels his position solid in the world ; he knows that his being is cognizable ; he knows that he has a marked place in the universe, and that he need take no extra pains to advertise mankind that he is among them ; he knows that he is in no danger of being overlooked. It does really take a deal of wrong to make one really hate a fat man ; and if we are not always as cordial to a thin man as we should be, Christian charity should take into account the force of prejudice which we have to overcome against his thinness. A fat man is nearest to that most perfect of figures, a mathematical sphere ; 412 Mosaics. a thin man to that most limited of conceivable dimen sions, a simple line. A fat man is a being of harmoni ous volume, and holds relations to the material universe iii every direction ; a thin man has nothing but length ; a thin man, in fact, is but the continuation of a point."* Thus much in favor of fat men ; now it must be ad mitted, on the other hand, that the greatest writers have been little, attenuated men, stomachless, meagre, lean, and lath-like beings, who have half-spiritualized them selves by keeping matter in due subordination to mind, corporeally testifying that the sword was worn out to the scabbard, and that the predominant soul has " o er- informed its tegument of clay." Look at the busts and portraits of Cicero, Demosthenes, Voltaire, Pope Lamb, and others, whose minds have meagred their bodies till they became almost as ethereal as the ardent spirit they enshrined is it not manifest that they have the true form and physiognomy of intellectual preemi nence ? Lord Byron never w^rote as well as when he was macerating himself by rigid abstinence ; and the most eminent of our living writers are all men of tem perate living and a spare bodily habit. A corpulent in- tellectualist is a contradiction in terms, a palpable cata- chresis. One might as well talk of a leaden kite, or a sedentary will-o -the-wisp. Obesity is a deadly foe to genius ; in carneous and unwieldy bodies the spirit is like a little gudgeon in a large frying-pan of fat, which is either totally absorbed, or tastes of nothing but lard. We conclude, notwithstanding all objections, that it is allowable " to laugh and grow fat," and we may add * Henry Giles. The Bright Side. 413 in the words of an old dramatist " Lack we motives to laugh? Are not all things, anything, everything, to be laughed at ? And if nothing were to be seen, felt, heard or understood, we would laugh at it too!" i; There s nothing here on earth deserves Half of the thought we waete about it, . And thinking but destroys the nerves, When we could do so well without it : If folks would let the world go round. And pay their tithes, and eat their dinners, Such doleful looks would not be found, To frighten us poor laughing sinners. Never sigh when yon can sing, But laugh, like me, at everything! " Some one spins from out his brains Fine cobwebs, to amuse his neighbors, And gets, for all his toils and pains, Reviewed, and laughed at for his labors : Fame is his star ! and fame is sweet ; And praise is pleasanter than honey Writing at just so much a sheet, The publishers to pay the money ! Salt tears are vastly pretty things, But make one very thin and taper; And sighs are music s sweetest strings, But sound most beautiful on paper ! 1 Thought is the sage s brightest star, Her gems alone are worth his finding; But as I m not particular, Please God ! I ll keep on never-minding. " Oh ! in this troubled world of ours, A laughter-mine s a glorious treasure ; 414 Mosaics. And separating thorns from flower?, - . Is 1 half a pain and i ire : And why be grave insitad of gay ? Why feel a-thirst while folks are quaffing ? Oh ! trust me, whatsoe er they say, There s nothing half so good as laughing ! Never sigh when you can sin?, But laugh, like mo, " Sam Slick," with his usual cuteness, puts the per tinent question more compactly than we can: "I ask again what is happiness ? It ain t bein idle, that s a fact no idle man or woman was happy since the world began. Eve was idle and that s the way she got tempted, poor critter ; employment gives appetite and digestion. Duty makes pleasure doubly sweet by con trast. When the harness is off, if the work ain t too hard, a critter likes to kick up his heels. When plea sure is the business of life, it ceases to be pleasure ; and when it is all labor and no play, work, like an unstuffed saddle, cuts into the very bone. Neither labor nor idleness has a road that leads to happiness one has no room for the heart, and the other corrupts it. Hard work is the best of the two, for that has, at all events, sound sleeps the other has restless pillows and unrefreshing sleeps one is misfortune, the other is a curse ; and money ain t happiness, that s as clear as mud." All s for the best be sanguine and cheerful Trouble and sorrow are friends in disguise. Nothing but folly goes faithless and fearful Courage for ever is happy and wise. The Bright Side. 415 " All s for the best if a man would but know it ; Providence wishes us all to be blest. This is no dream of the pundit or poet Heaven is gracious, and all s for the best. "All s for the best be a man but confiding; Providence tenderly governs the rest; And the frail bark of his creature is guiding, Wisely and warily, all for the best. " All s for the best then fling away terrors, Meet all your fears and your foes in the van ; And in the midst of your dangers or errors Trust like a child, while you strive like a man. " All s for the best. Unbiased, unbounded, Providence reigns from the east to the west. So, both by wisdom and mercy surrounded, Hope and be happy, for all s for the best." There is very impressive power in Christian content ment, on those who see it from without. It is a sun shine amid dripping clouds a Sabbath heart in a week-day body, and Sabbath speech amid the dialects of Babel. It is brightest when all around it is blackest. It is that blessed mood which SSforfrsfoorilj refers to " In which the burden of the mystery In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world Is lightened." Then what an antidote it is to misfortune and sorrow. Think of Milton in the blindness, obloquy, poverty and 416 Mosaics. solitude of his old age. He had nourished in his youth and early manhood, the power to appreciate what is perfect and excellent. So when his natural vision became darkened, and, one by one, the lights of life went out, he had but to summon around him the beau tiful and sublime things he had stored away in his chambers of imagery. Imagination, the mighty magi cian, selected, combined, and glorified all, forming them into a new world, a world infinitely nobler than the one from which he was excluded. There he reigned supreme and happy, though shut out from the light of day, and scorned by men. Think of Milton s work and songs. Think of Cowper ; for years hovering on the verge of madness; often kept from utter despair only by the constant exercise of this inspiring faculty. It redeemed long periods of his life from hopeless misery and deso lation. Think of Cljarloitc rente in her illness, loneliness and grief. Her literary pursuits were never allowed to interfere with household cares, or common duties, in the relationships of life. "There came first," she says, " the faculty of imagination lifting me up when I was sinking three months ago ; its active exercise has kept my head above water since ; its results cheer me now, for I feel that they have enabled me to give plea sure to others. I am thankful to God who gave me the faculty, and it is for me a part of my religion to defend this gift and profit by its possession." It is not that we are to cease from the necessary work of life, or that we are to omit efforts for the well- The Bright Side. 417 being of others, but we are to cheer and invigorate our souls by cultivating the gift which God has bestowed upon us, thereby rendering our toil less burdensome, or elevating it into pleasant task work. " Men of truly great power of mind," says Jrmtas $jeffag, "have generally been cheerful, social and indul gent ; while a tendency to sentimental whining or fierce intolerance may be ranked among the surest symptoms of little souls and inferior intellects. In the whole list of our English poets we can only remember Shenstone and Savage two certainly of the lowest, who were very querulous and discontented. Cowley, indeed, used to call himself melancholy; but he was not in earnest, and at any rate was full of conceits and affecta tions, and has nothing to make us proud of him. Shak- speare, the greatest of them all, was evidently of a free and joyous temperament ; and so w r as Chaucer, their common master. The same disposition appears to have predominated in Fletcher, Jonson and their great contemporaries. The genius of Milton partook some thing of the austerity of the party to which he belonged, and of the controversies in which he was involved ; but even when fallen on evil days and evil tongues his spirit seems to have retained its serenity as well as its dig nity ; and, in his private life as well as in his poetry the majesty of a high character is tempered with great sweetness, genial indulgences and practical wisdom. In the succeeding age our poets were but too gay ; and though we forbear to speak of living authors, we know enough of them to say with confidence, that to be 18* 418 Mosaics. miserable or to be hated is not now, any more than heretofore, the common lot of those." " Human affections are the leaves, the foliage of our being they catch every breath, and in the burden and heat of the day they make music arid motion in a sul try world. Stripped of that foliage, how unsightly is human nature." " Human beings need the sympathy of human words. Human hearts need the expression of human feelings for comfort and healing. In many times of weakness heaven seems far off the world has eclipsed the light of Revelation sin or his imperfections have isolated the desponding one so that he cannot see God. When faith is dormant, a sentiment expressed by one who has been similarly situated, may be to it as a vital stimulus, as very bread of life to the famishing soul." Gratitude is the homage the heart renders to God for his goodness ; Christian cheerfulness is the external manifestation of the homage." "What a sad mistake it is to suppose that a man should be gloomy because he is devout ; as if misery were acceptable to God on its own account, and happi ness an offence against his dignity. A modern writer says : c There is a secret belief among some men that God is displeased with men s happiness and so they slink about creation, ashamed and afraid to enjoy any thing. They are the people of whom floob says : " They think they re pious When they re only bilious. The Bright Side. 419 " A good man is almost always a cheerful one. It is fit that bad men should scowl and look blue, and be melancholy ; but he who has God s smile of approba tion upon him should show its radiance in his counte nance. Dr. Johnson said he never knew a villain in his life that was not, on the whole, an unhappy dog. And well he may be. But an honest man the man with a good conscience let him enjoy his sleep, and his dinner, and the love of his wife, and the prattle of his children, and show a beaming face to his neighbor. Surely there is no worse theology than that which teaches that He who has given such fullness of joy to beasts and birds, delights in the misery of men ; or that, having filled our hearts with gladness, we ought to give the lie to his goodness by wearing faces be clouded with woe." Let us, then, carry along with us in our hearts some bright streaks of sunshine for a rainy day. Dark days are not less needful or healthful for us than bright ones. Uninterrupted sunshine would parch our hearts ; we want shade and rain to cool, refresh and fertilize them. " Sweet are the uses of adversity Which, like the toad, ugly arid venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in its head." Whatever casualties betide us, let us meet them with a complacent heroism, and entertain them with the conviction that they are assigned to us as an essential element in our life-mission ; since they are the allot ment of Infinite Wisdom and Beneficence. A firm filial trust in the Fatherhood of God is the key-note to a 420 Mosaics. life of perpetual praise, and perpetual peace. The voices of nature even suggest this law to us but we have " a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto we do well that we take heed" that marvellous Book which has ever been at once the Christian s armory and his treasury of divine counsel and comfort. THE END. By the same Author. SAL,AI> FOB, THE SOLITARY. BY AN EPICURE. THE TWELFTH THOUSAND. I2mo. cloth. $1 25. " The Epicure is a literary gossip of the pleasantest sort. He has read much and noted his reading ; read with his mind awake and with his heart open to the appeals of beauty. A something between the elder D Israeli and Hazlitt half- a collector, half an essayist he piles up for the reader s delectation, thought, fancy, anecdote. The ingredients are borrowed for the most part but he gives them a new flavor, a fresh pungency by the combination in which he places them." London AthencEum. " Every chapter of this clever book would tempt a man to seek solitude for the pleasure of enjoying this intellectual Salad." London Morning Herald. " The book is one of the most cheerful that could well be conceived ; and withal carries unmistakable marks of having been written by one, who having read a great deal and observed a great deal, has mastered the happy secret of putting into the most attractive form the results of his reading and observa tion." Sharpens London Mag. " The writer has evidently picked a vast number of the most curious and agreeable morsels, and he has put them together with original remarks of the relish of the true Attic salt." Putnam s Monthly. * It is a * quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. It has an avalanche of curious anecdote, and smart sayings upon many topics ; the book would again and again make a lonely hour pass without weariness." London Globe. The book has been compared to Montaigne has elicited the notice of Punch, and been enthusiastically welcomed by most of the leading Journals of the United States and of London. " It is a Salad peculiarly to my taste, and which I have relished with some what the curious palate of a literary epicure." Washington Irving. " It breathes the fine aroma of the library, and reveals a love of choice old books." Tribune. " A bonne bouche for a quiet hour s enjoyment. It is a book which ignorant men may read and appear learned, upon the fruits of the author s labor." Cou rier and Inq. " A Salad such us D Israeli, Leigh Hunt and Elia might have united to con coct." Willis s Home, Journal. "While it contains such a mass of the author s thoughts and the thoughts of others, it is eminently quickening to the reader s own mind, and sets him to thinking." Observer. *** The above book sent to any address, prepaid, on receipt of the price. CHARLES SCRIBNER, 124 Grand street, N. T. SALAD FOR THE SOCIAL. BY THE AUTHOR OF "SALAD FOR THE SOLITARY." I2mo. cloth. $1 25. "Here we have a book-Salad, composed of various and vivacious gossip on men and things, and cunningly seasoned with a pleasant humor. We read and can fancy oneself a listener at some table, where the guests are rare and lively talkers, such is its fountain of anecdote," etc. British Quarterly R&v. " A book for all readers, every page containing something interesting to some one. It is the essence of a library the information of a life-time." London Morning Chronicle. " Here is a book to our heart s content ; an exquisite medley of all sorts of ap petizing and delicious matters collected from all parts, and mixed with the ge nius of an artist." London Critic. " It abounds in sententious and pungent aphorisms, beautiful passages of sentiment and philosophy, amusing anecdotes and solid practical information all collected from rare sources inaccessible to the majority of readers." Home Journal. " In some respects it resembles the collections of D Israeli, but in the \7ork before us we find a more manly tone of feeling." W. C. Bryant (Ev. Post.) " It is not a work to be read, but re-read, and I believe the second pleasure will be fully equal to the first." G. P. R. James. " We know of no book we should select in preference to this flavorous volume with which to while away a dull day." N. Y. Quarterly Rev. "It furnishes a fund of amusement to the reader, while at the same time it instructs and benefits him." Anglo Saxon. " This Salad is a collection of choice passages, connected by such extensive links of original composition, as to elevate the whole almost to the character of an original work. The materials are artistically digested. We should add that the greater number of the authors thus drawn upon are not hackneyed and fa miliar. It reminds us of the invaluable collection by the elder D Israeli." Empress. 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