Yf/tffi'^'.u/ij f ^/' YjaMft/^fHa c/^^^yi^e^'iU^^ yo^ {Qa^^^f^^i^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/essaysofamericanOOnewyrich EDITORS AND ARTISTS EDITION This Edition is limited to one thousand Copies, of which this Copy is Number orlte 4irrat nnm 6[^iton$ai)5^rn5b®inot) 'CimotblDuJi5bt,D.D.,LLD. Richard Y2er)v^Sloddar^ ur Ricbii}ot)ii lBar5h,^.B. - Paul va») Dvke.;D.D. ^yil.^altprl)unne (Jompanil Copyright, 1900, By the colonial PRESS. HfcH^^ «^-^-'- ..^rrt • • e t * ••eo e c»» SPECIAL INTRODUCTION THE earliest American essayists were the clergymen. Those first days of the great republic were religious days. And although the pulpit was eminently spiritual, and fervid, and the devil was duly excoriated, and lessons of faith and humility were inculcated, yet those hour-long homilies were not all theology. Ethics, and manners, and social and national progress were discussed in sermons, which were in reality well-rounded essays. So that the influence of the pulpit became not only moral, but intellectual and even literary, as well. And the lecLuters who came later, what was their mission but to spread the influence of the essay? Apart from polemics and in addition to politics and partisanship, they presented to well-filled halls throughout the country essays, essays, nothing but essays. And now the magazines, which visit every fireside, continue the cult and keep it well apace with poetry and fiction, far surpassing the former indeed in worth and quality. The essay then has / ever been near to the American heart, has ever basfeed in public favor. And from the contingencies of our early days it could start full-panoplied and well-equipped. It had the culture of France and England as a fulcrum, and proceeded by main force to lift the taste of our early citizens from the merely utilitarian and the grubbing commonplace to a conception of the graceful and the beautiful. It was necessarily formative and educational. Its task was premeasured, foreordered. Those among the first essayists who were not in the pulpit might well have been, for they were ethical guides and pathfinders. And the statesmen and historians and poets who came to swell the Hst ; they all wore the robe of the prophet and the teacher, even when dally- ing with lighter themes. It is well for our literature that the es- sayists have spoken. For whether one points to poetry or fic- tion or history or theology or science, in no category will he find an achievement of supremacy excelling that which the es- X i /I n 'T o iv SPECIAL INTRODUCTION sayists h^ y? fl^^^^"^ ^- Take even the greatest exemplars of our poetry and fiction, Poe and Hawthorne, in their lonely majesty of leadership. Their essays fall not far short of their lyrics and romances. To use a geographical metaphor, Poe's life was bounded on the north by sorrow, on the east by poverty, on the south by aspiration and on the west by calumny ; his genius was unbounded. There are literary hyenas still prowling about his grave. But his pensive brow wears the garland of immortality. His soul was music and his very life-blood was purest art. His ear caught the cadences of that higher harmony which poets hear above the world's turmoil. In spite of detraction he is safely enshrined in memory while poetry shall live. .Young poets will always have tears and roses for his grave. And dreamy, inquisitve Hawthorne, probing and searching the human heart! There is the majesty of the seer about him. He takes one by the hand and leads him through enchanted palaces of art and whispers of the mysteries of life, and discloses the well-springs of character and motive. A favorite of the gods was he, dwelling high upon Olympus. Fancy his life at Salem among those quiet folk; shall we call them pygmies? Bryant's style was pure and cold as a rivulet among his native hills. He was Nature's adept, knowing the language of flower and field and forest, the interpreter of natural beauty. A sweet, unruffied, high-bred quietude possessed him. He had the direct simpHcity of Burns, with the lofty dignity of Wordsworth. He respected himself and his fellow-man, and dwelt ever " near to Nature's heart." In Emerson the essay touched its highest pinnacle. Here is a teacher sent from God. His influence upon the people was in- calculable and still is immeasurable. He had a high lesson for the people, and he taught it. His wisdom was needed. His exhortative utterances helped to stimulate the plodding common soul and raise it to loftier regions of thought and action. " Hitch your wagon to a star ; " there is a dictum one could not by any chance forget. It burns into the memory and becomes a part of it. It is not merely remembered, it is assimilated, in- corporated, absorbed. Emerson was a preacher in hjs essays. Humanity, morality, patriotism, these' were his burdens, and he bore them to the end. He made the rostrum a second pulpit. He made culture a religion. He delved into the eternal verities, I SPECIAL INTRODUCTION V id refined the gold of thought for the many. He threshed and innowed and garnered the golden grain of pro^jess and high Inking, and gave it to the people. To-day hardly an essayist ^ill dispute his leadership. His works will remain a storehouse of Christian ethics and promptings to high endeavor and a noble philosophy. " A sweet and gentle soul," Emerson called Longfellow. To be loved by the young, ah, that is a great thing! Before the stress of the decades has wearied the heart and dimmed with tears the eyes expectant, to be then the chosen friend of youth, pure and holy in its Heavenly aspirations and its turnings toward thejightj^ So is it with Longfellow, who sang in lute- tones, bard of the gentle, the musing, the refined. He was not sublime, he was more — he was human. The youth of the future will hold him to their hearts, as it gladly does in these current days of storm and stress. Readers of the rising generation will never realize the ex- traordinary influence of ^^§J§^t^e. Her cry was an evangel, a clarion-call, a battle hymn. The North and the South, reading her words, saw the camp-fires afar, heard the tread of serried columns, felt the onset of marshalled hosts. Into forty lan- guages her book was translated. It was a golden bugle sound- ing the charge, but its notes have long since been hushed into the diapason of God-given fraternal peace, happy, forgiving national union and joyous concord. Holnies was a born essayist. If Pope " lisped in numbers, for the numbers came," so the smiling philosopher of the breakfast- table wrote essays as naturally as the sun shines or th£._T^aters flow. Brilliant as ¥~poFt~and"novelist, able and beloved as a technical instructor, yet it was those cheery, bonny, playful papers, filled wdth the keenest wit and deepest feeling, recurring from month to month, essays in all but strict form, which en- deared him to all hearts and made him indeed an autocrat. " A gentleman of the old school; " how often do we hear this term misapplied ! But it fits Curtis as gracefully as the folds of a toga enwrapped the form of a Roman senator. Here are court- liness and stately ease. Here is urbanity as dignified as an old court minuet. Here is a suggestion of the modern equivalent to " rufifs and cufifs, and farthingales and things." A sweet se- renity and perfect taste pervade his pages, a charm like the odor vi . SPECIAL INTRODUCTION of lavender which lingers about an ancient, forgotten, garret- hidden escritoire. It is difficult for the present writer to speak of Whitman. In the first place, it seems to him something like praising Shake- speare, which appears not altogether a novel thing to do. And in the second place, he realizes that the " Whitman cult " is somewhat in advance of the times. But it is his belief that the coming centuries will place Walt Whitman high on the list of glorious names, the first voice of a united, crystallized, original America, a bard who sang democracy, our great citizenship, God-love, and the comradeship of the throbbing, suffering, hop- ing, majestic human heart. >^^^^j>cc/t/oej2^ ^. yC't^OUi^AUjL> Edmund Dwight. 52 CHANNING brought into the national treasury, which are applied to the cur- rent expenses of the government. For this application there is no need. In truth, the country has received detriment from the excess of its revenues. Now, I ask, why shall not the pub- lic lands be consecrated (in whole or in part, as the case may require) to the education of the people? This measure would secure at once what the country most needs ; that is, able, ac- complished, quickening teachers of the whole rising genera- tion. The present poor remuneration of instructors is a dark omen, and the only real obstacle which the cause of education has to contend with. We need for our schools gifted men and women, worthy, by their intelligence and their moral power, to be intrusted with a nation's youth ; and, to gain these, we must pay them liberally, as well as afford other proofs of the con- sideration in which we hold them. In the present state of the country, when so many paths of wealth and promotion are opened, superior men cannot be won to an office so responsible and laborious as that of teaching, without stronger inducements than are now offered, except in some of our large cities. The office of instructor ought to rank and be recompensed as one of the most honorable in society ; and I see not how this is to be done, at least in our day, without appropriating to it the public domain. This is the people's property, and the only part of their property which is likely to be soon devoted to the support of a high order of institutions for public education. This ob- ject, interesting to all classes of society, has peculiar claims on those whose means of improvement are restricted by narrow circumstances. The mass of the people should devote them- selves to it as one man, should toil for it with one soul. Me- chanics, farmers, laborers! let the country echo with your united cry, " The Public Lands for Education." Send to the public councils men who will plead this cause with power. No party triumphs, no trades-unions, no associations, can so con- tribute to elevate you as the measure now proposed. Nothing but a higher education can raise you in influence and true dig- nity. The resources of the public domain, wisely applied for successive generations to the culture of society and of the in- dividual, would create a new people, would awaken through this community intellectual and moral energies, such as the records of no country display, and as would command the re- SELF-CULTURE 53 spect and emulation of the civilized world. In this grand ob- ject the working men of all parties, and in all divisions of the land, should join with an enthusiasm not to be withstood. They should separate it from all narrow and local strifes. They should not suffer it to be mixed up with the schemes of politi- cians. In it, they and their children have an infinite stake. May they be true to themselves, to posterity, to their country, to freedom, to the cause of mankind ! III. I am aware that the whole doctrine of this discourse will meet with opposition. There are not a few who will say to me : " What you tell us sounds well ; but it is impracticable. Men who dream in their closets spin beautiful theories ; but actual life scatters them, as the wind snaps the cobweb. You would have all men to be cultivated ; but necessity wills that most men shall work ; and which of the two is likely to prevail ? A weak sentimentality may shrink from the truth ; still it is true that most men were made, not for self-culture, but for toil." I have put the objection into strong language, that we may all look it fairly in the face. For one I deny its validity. Rea- son, as well as sentiment, rises up against it. The presumption is certainly very strong, that the All-wise Father, who has given to every human being reason and conscience and affection, in- tended that these should be unfolded ; and it is hard to believe that He who, by conferring this nature on all men, has made all his children, has destined the great majority to wear out a life of drudgery and unimproving toil, for the benefit of a few. God cannot have made spiritual beings to be dwarfed. In the body we see no organs created to shrivel by disuse ; much less are the powers of the soul given to be locked up in perpetual lethargy. Perhaps it will be replied that the purpose of the Creator is to be gathered, not from theory, but from facts ; and that it is a plain fact, that the order and prosperity of society, which God must be supposed to intend, require from the multitude the action of their hands, and not the improvement of their minds. I reply that a social order demanding the sacrifice of the mind is very suspicious, that it cannot, indeed, be sanctioned by the Creator. Were I, on visiting a strange country, to see the vast majority of the people maimed, crippled, and bereft of sight, and were I told that social order required this mutilation. 54 CHANNING I should say, Perish this order. Who would not think his un- derstanding as well as best feelings insulted, by hearing this spoken of as the intention of God ? Nor ought we to look with less aversion on a social system which can only be upheld by crippling and blinding the minds of the people. But to come nearer to the point. Are labor and self-culture irreconcilable to each other? In the first place, we have seen that a man, in the midst of labor, may and ought to give himself to the most important improvements, that he may cultivate his sense of justice, his benevolence, and the desire of perfection. Toil is the school for these high principles ; and we have here a strong presumption that, in other respects, it does not neces- sarily blight the soul. Next, we have seen that the most fruit- ful sources of truth and wisdom are not books, precious as they are, but experience and observation; and these belong to all conditions. It is another important consideration that almost all labor demands intellectual activity, and is best carried on by those who invigorate their minds ; so that the two interests, toil and self-culture, are friends to each other. It is mind, after all, which does the work of the world, so that the more there is of mind, the more work will be accomplished. A man, in pro- portion as he is intelligent, makes a given force accomplish a greater task, makes skill take the place of muscles, and, with less labor, gives a better product. Make men intelligent, and they become inventive. They find shorter processes. Their knowledge of nature helps them to turn its laws to account, to understand the substances on which they work, and to seize on useful hints, which experience continually furnishes. It is among workmen that some of the most useful machines have been contrived. Spread education, and, as the history of this country shows, there will be no bounds to useful inventions. You think that a man without culture will do all the better what you call the drudgery of life. Go, then, to the Southern planta- tion. There the slave is brought up to be a mere drudge. He is robbed of the rights of a man, his whole spiritual nature is starved, that he may work, and do nothing but work ; and in that slovenly agriculture, in that worn-out soil, in the rude state of the mechanic arts, you may find a comment on your doctrine, that, by degrading men, you make them more productive laborers. SELF-CULTURE 55 But it is said, that any considerable education lifts men above their work, makes them look with disgust on their trades as mean and low, makes drudgery intolerable. I reply than a man becomes interested in labor just in proportion as the mind works with the hands. An enlightened farmer, who understands agri- cultural chemistry, the laws of vegetation, the structure of plants, the properties of manures, the influences of climate, who looks intelligently on his work, and brings his knowledge to bear on exigencies, is a much more cheerful, as well as more dignified laborer, than the peasant whose mind is akin to the clod on which he treads, and whose whole life is the same dull, unthinking, unimproving toil. But this is not all. Why is it, I ask, that we call manual labor low, that we associate with it the idea of meanness, and think that an intelligent people must scorn it? The great reason is, that, in most countries, so few intelligent people have been engaged in it. Once let cultivated men plough, and dig, and follow the commonest labors, and ploughing, digging, and trades will cease to be mean. It is the man who determines the dignity of the occupation, not the oc- cupation which measures the dignity of the man. Physicians and surgeons perform operations less cleanly than fall to the lot of most mechanics. I have seen a distinguished chemist covered with dust like a laborer. Still these men were not de- graded. Their intelligence gave dignity to their work, and so our laborers, once educated, will give dignity to their toils. Let me add, that I see little difference in point of dignity between the various vocations of men. When I see a clerk spending his days in adding figures, perhaps merely copying, or a teller of a bank counting money, or a merchant selling shoes and hides, I cannot see in these occupations greater respectableness than in making leather, shoes, or furniture. I do not see in them greater intellectual activity than in several trades. A man in the fields seems to have more chances of improvement in his work than a man behind the counter, or a man driving the quill. It is the sign of a narrow mind to imagine, as many seem to do, that there is a repugnance between the plain, coarse ex- terior of a laborer, and mental culture, especially the more re- fining culture. The laborer, under his dust and sweat, carries the grand elements of humanity, and he may put forth its high- est powers. I doubt not there is as genuine enthusiasm in the 56 CHANNING contemplation of nature, and in the perusal of works of genius, under a homespun garb as under finery. We have heard of a distinguished author who never wrote so well as when he was full dressed for company. But profound thought and poetical inspiration have most generally visited men when, from narrow circumstances or negligent habits, the rent coat and shaggy face have made them quite unfit for polished salons. A man may see truth, and may be thrilled with beauty, in one costume or dwelling as well as another ; and he should respect himself the more for the hardships under which his intellectual force has been developed. But it will be asked, how can the laboring classes find time for self-culture? I answer, as I have already intimated, that an earnest purpose finds time or makes time. It seizes on spare moments, and turns large fragments of leisure to golden ac- count. A man who follows his calling with industry and spirit, and uses his earnings economically, will always have some por- tion of the day at command ; and it is astonishing how fruitful of improvement a short season becomes, when eagerly seized and faithfully used. It has often been observed that they who have most time at their disposal profit by it least. A single hour in the day, steadily given to the study of an interesting subject, brings unexpected accumulations of knowledge. The improvements made by well-disposed pupils in many of our country schools, which are open but three months in the year, and in our Sunday schools, which are kept but one or two hours in the week, show what can be brought to pass by slender means. The affections, it is said, sometimes crowd years into moments, and the intellect has something of the same power. Volumes have not only been read, but written, in flying journeys. I have known a man of vigorous intellect, who had enjoyed few advantages of early education, and whose mind was almost en- grossed by the details of an extensive business, but who com- posed a book of much original thought, in steamboats and on horseback, while visiting distant customers. The succession of the seasons gives to many of the working class opportunities for intellectual improvement. The winter brings leisure to the husbandman, and winter evenings to many laborers in the city. Above all, in Christian countries, the seventh day is released from toil. The seventh part of the year, no small portion of SELF-CULTURE 57 existence, may be given by almost every one to intellectual and moral culture. Why is it that Sunday is not made a more ef- fectual means of improvement ? Undoubtedly the seventh day is to have a religious character ; but religion connects itself with all the great subjects of human thought, and leads to and aids the study of all. God is in nature. God is in history. Instruc- tion in the works of the Creator, so as to reveal His perfection in their harmony, beneficence, and grandeur ; instruction in the histories of the church and the world, so as to show in all events His moral government, and to bring out the great moral les- sons in which human life abounds; instruction in the Hves of philanthropists, of saints, of men eminent for piety and virtue — all these branches of teaching enter into religion, and are ap- propriate to Sunday; and, through these, a vast amount of knowledge may be given to the people. Sunday ought not to remain the dull and fruitless season that it now is to multitudes. It may be clothed with a new interest and a new sanctity. It may give a new impulse to the nation's soul. I have thus shown that time may be found for improvement ; and the fact is, that among our most improved people a considerable part consists of persons who pass the greatest portion of every day at the desk, in the counting-room, or in some other sphere, chained to tasks which have very little tendency to expand the mind. In the progress of society, with the increase of machinery, and with other aids which intelligence and philanthropy will mul- tiply, we may expect that more and more time will be redeemed from manual labor for intellectual and social occupations. But some will say : " Be it granted that the working classes may find some leisure ; should they not be allowed to spend it in relaxation ? Is it not cruel to summon them from toils of the hand to toils of the mind ? They have earned pleasure by the day's toil, and ought to partake it." Yes, let them have pleas- ure. Far be it from me to dry up the fountains, to blight the spots of verdure, where they refresh themselves after life's labors. But I maintain that self-culture multiplies and in- creases their pleasures, that it creates new capacities of enjoy- ment, that it saves their leisure from being, what it too often is, dull and wearisome, that it saves them from rushing for excitement to indulgences destructive to body and souL It is one of the great benefits of self-improvement, that it raises a 58 CHANNING people above the gratifications of the brute, and gives them pleasures worthy of men. In consequence of the present intel- lectual culture of our country, imperfect as it is, a vast amount of enjoyment is communicated to men, women, and children, of all conditions, by books — an enjoyment unknown to ruder times. At this moment a number of gifted writers are em- ployed in multiplying entertaining works. Walter Scott, a name conspicuous among the brightest of his day, poured out his inexhaustible mind in fictions, at once so sportive and thrill- ing that they have taken their place among the delights of all civiHzed nations. How many millions have been chained to his pages! How many melancholy spirits has be steeped in for- getfulness of their cares and sorrows! What multitudes, wearied by their day's work, have owed some bright evening hours and balmier sleep to his magical creations? And not only do fictions give pleasure. In proportion as the mind is cultivated, it takes delight in history and biography, in descrip- tions of nature, in travels, in poetry, and even graver works. Is the laborer then defrauded of pleasure by improvement? There is another class of gratifications to which self-culture in- troduces the mass of the people. I refer to lectures, discus- sions, meetings of associations for benevolent and literary pur- poses, and to other like methods of passing the evening, which every year is multiplying among us. A popular address from an enlightened man, who has the tact to reach the minds of the people, is a high gratification, as well as a source of knowledge. The profound silence in our public halls, where these lectures are delivered to crowds, shows that cultivation is no foe to en- joyment. I have a strong hope, that by the progress of intelli- gence, taste, and morals among all portions of society, a class of public amusements will grow up among us, bearing some resemblance to the theatre, but purified from the gross evils which degrade our present stage, and which, I trust, will seal its ruin. Dramatic performances and recitations are means of bringing the mass of the people into a quicker sympathy with a writer of genius, to a profounder comprehension of his grand, beautiful, touching conceptions, than can be effected by the reading of the closet. No commentary throws such a light on a great poem or any impassioned work of literature as the voice of a reader or speaker who brings to the task a deep feeling of SELF-CULTURE 59 his author and rich and various powers of expression. A crowd, electrified by a subHme thought, or softened into a hu- manizing sorrow, under such a voice, partake a pleasure at once exquisite and refined; and I cannot but believe that this and other amusements, at which the delicacy of woman and the purity of the Christian can take no offence, are to grow up un- der a higher social culture. Let me only add, that, in propor- tion as culture spreads among a peoj\le, the cheapest and com- monest of all pleasures, conversation, increases in delight. This, after all, is the great amusement of life, cheering us round our hearths, often cheering our work, stirring our hearts gently, acting on us like the balmy air or the bright light of heaven, so silently and continually, that we hardly think of its influence. This source of happiness is too often lost to men of all classes for want of knowledge, mental activity, and refinement of feel- ing; and do we defraud the laborer of his pleasure by recom- mending to him improvements which will place the daily, hourly blessings of conversation within his reach? I have thus considered some of the common objections which start up when the culture of the mass of men is insisted on as the great end of society. For myself, these objections seem worthy little notice. The doctrine is too shocking to need refutation, that the great majority of human beings, endowed as they are with rational and immortal powers, are placed on earth simply to toil for their own animal subsistence, and to minister to the luxury and elevation of the few. It is mon- strous, it approaches impiety, to suppose that God has placed insuperable barriers to the expansion of the free, illimitable soul. True, there are obstructions in the way of improvement. But in this country, the chief obstructions lie, not in our lot but in ourselves ; not in outward hardships, but in our worldly and sensual propensities ; and one proof of this is that a true self- culture is as little thought of on exchange as in the workshop, as little among the prosperous as among those of narrower con- ditions. The path to perfection is difficult to men in every lot ; there is no royal road for rich or poor. But difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict. And how much has it already overcome! Under what burdens of oppression has it made its way for ages ! What mountains of difficulty has it cleared ! And with all this 6o CHANNING experience, shall we say that the progress of the mass of men is to be despaired of ; that the chains of bodily necessity are too strong and ponderous to be broken by the mind ; that servile, unimproving drudgery is the unalterable condition of the mul- titude of the human race ? I conclude with recalling to you the happiest feature of our age, and that is, the progress of the mass of the people in intelli- gence, self-respect, and all the comforts of life. What a con- trast does the present form with past times ! Not many ages ago the nation was the property of one man, and all its interests were staked in perpetual games of war, for no end but to build up his family, or to bring new territories under his yoke. So- ciety was divided into two classes, the high-born and the vulgar, separated from one another by a great gulf, as impassable as that between the saved and the lost. The people had no sig- nificance as individuals, but formed a mass, a machine, to be wielded at pleasure by their lords. In war, which was the great sport of the times, those brave knights, of whose prowess we hear, cased themselves and their horses in armor, so as to be almost invulnerable, whilst the common people on foot were left, without protection, to be hewn in pieces or trampled down by their betters. Who that compares the condition of Europe a few years ago with the present state of the world but must bless God for the change? The grand distinction of modern times is, the emerging of the people from brutal degradation, the gradual recognition of their rights, the gradual diffu- sion among them of the means of improvement and happi- ness, the creation of a new power in the state — the power of the people. And it is worthy remark, that this revolution is due in a great degree to religion, which, in the hands of the crafty and aspiring, had bowed the multitude to the dust, but which, in the fulness of time, began to fulfil its mission of freedom. It was religion which, by teaching men their near relation to God, awakened in them the consciousness of their importance as individuals. It was the struggle for religious rights which opened men's eyes to all their rights. It was resistance to religious usurpation which led men to with- stand political oppression. It was religious discussion which roused the minds of all classes to free and vigorous thought. It was religion which armed the martyr and patriot in England SELF-CULTURE 6i against arbitrary power, which braced the spirits of our fathers against the perils of the ocean and wilderness, and sent them to found here the freest and most equal state on earth. Let us thank God for what has been gained. But let us not think everything gained. Let the people feel that they have only started in the race. How much remains to be done ! What a vast amount of ignorance, intemperance, coarseness, sensu- ality, may still be found in our community! What a vast amount of mind is palsied and lost ! When we think that every house might be cheered by intelligence, disinterestedness, and refinement, and then remember in how many houses the higher powers and affections of human nature are buried as in tombs, what a darkness gathers over society ! And how few of us are moved by this moral desolation ! How few understand that to raise the depressed, by a wise culture, to the dignity of men, is the highest end of the social state? Shame on us, that the worth of a fellow-creature is so little felt. I would that I could speak with an awakening voice to the people of their wants, their privileges, their responsibilities. I would say to them. You cannot, without guilt and disgrace, stop where you are. The past and the present call on you to ad- vance. Let what you have gained be an impulse to something higher. Your nature is too great to be crushed. You were not created what you are, merely to toil, eat, drink, and sleep, like the inferior animals. If you will, you can rise. No power in society, no hardship in your condition can depress you, keep you down, in knowledge, power, virtue, influence, but by your own consent. Do not be lulled to sleep by the flatteries which you hear, as if your participation in the national sovereignty made you equal to the noblest of your race. You have many and great deficiencies to be remedied ; and the remedy lies, not in the ballot-box, not in the exercise of your political powers, but in the faithful education of yourselves and your children. These truths you have often heard and slept over. Awake! Resolve earnestly on self-culture. Make yourselves worthy of your free institutions, and strengthen and perpetuate them by your intelligence and your virtues. THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE BY WASHINGTON IRVING WASHINGTON IRVING 1783— 1859 The youngest of eleven children, Washington Irving was born in New York City in 1783. He received only a common school education, but soon developed a marked taste for literature, which was encouraged and confirmed by the success of some contributions to a paper edited by one of his older brothers. Ill-health suggested a trip to Europe. He re- mained two years, and the mental impressions and stimulus he received were such that this journey may properly be regarded as his university education. On his return, in 1807, Irving helped to launch a periodical called " Salmagundi," in frank imitation of the " Spectator,"- which was well received. In 1809 he published his " History of New York, by Died- rich Knickerbocker," the most delightful and ably sustained burlesque in American literature. This work at once made Irving the most noted of American men of letters, but his happiness was clouded by the death of the young lady whom he was engaged to marry. Although he re- covered from the blow, he never married. Owing to the business re- verses of a mercantile house in which Irving was interested, he deter- mined to rely henceforth upon his literary efforts for a livelihood. In 1819 he published the " Sketch Book." Murray, the English publisher having at first refused it, only undertook the venture on the personal solicitation of Walter Scott. It proved a great success, both in England and America. " Bracebridge Hall " followed in 1822. These books contain some of his finest work, and are widely studied as models of English composition. After publishing " Tales of a Traveller " in 1824, Irving went to Spain for the purpose of translating some newly discovered papers referring to Columbus. Becoming interested in the subject, he wrote his admirable " History of Columbus," and this was followed by the " Conquest of Granada," " The Alhambra," and several other charming books on early Spanish history. In 1832 Irving returned to the United States, after an absence of seven years, being everywhere received with genuine enthusiasm. He now purchased the beautiful cottage " Sunnyside " at Tarrvtown-on- the-Hudson to pass here quietly, as he thought, his remaining years. In 1842, however, he returned once more to Europe, this time in the honored capacity of American Minister to Spain, an office which he filled with distinction for four years. Having served his country well, he now devoted himself to preparing his " Life of Washington." This work of five volumes he only completed at the cost of great physical suffering. He died in his Sunnyside home at Tarrytown, in 1859, at the age of seventy-six. Irving's position in American literature is deservedly high. Not only was he the first of the group of writers who are the founders of Ameri- can literature, but he was the first American writer to arouse the interest of Englishmen, or, as Thackeray's graceful phrase puts it, " the first ambassador whom the New World of Letters sent to the Old." Irving was not a versatile writer. He wrote no poetry. His essay on " The Mutability of Literature " is one of the most important of his papers in the essay style. His is master of the short story, and several of his efforts in this field rank among the finest in all literature. Diedrich Knickerbocker, Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane, and especially Rip Van Winkle, have become household names. His style is clear, musical, full of delicate touches, and pervaded with an indescribable charm that emanated from the genial character of the man. 64 THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE A Colloquy in Westminster Abbey I know that all beneath the moon decays, And what by mortals in this world is brought, In time's great period shall return to nought. I know that all the muse's heavenly lays, With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, As idle sounds, of few or none are sought ; That there is nothing lighter than mere praise. — Drummond of Hawthornden. THERE are certain half-dreaming moods of mind, in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt, where we may indulge our reveries and build our air-castles undisturbed. In such a mood I was loitering about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Ab- bey, enjoying that luxury of wandering thought which one is apt to dignify with the name of reflection ; when suddenly an in- terruption of madcap boys from Westminster School, playing at football, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merriment. I sought to take refuge from their noise by penetrating still deeper into the solitudes of the pile, and ap- plied to one of the vergers for admission to the library. He conducted me through a portal rich with the crumbling sculpt- ure of former ages, which opened upon a gloomy passage lead- ing to the chapter-house and the chamber in which Doomsday Book is deposited. Just within the passage is a small door on the left. To this the verger applied a key ; it was double-locked, and opened with some difficulty, as if seldom used. We now ascended a dark, narrow staircase, and, passing through a second door, entered the library. I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof supported by massive joints of old English oak. It was soberly lighted by a 5 65 ee IRVING row of Gothic windows at a considerable height from the floor, and which apparently opened upon the roofs of the cloisters. An ancient picture of some reverend dignitary of the Church in his robes hung over the fireplace. Around the hall and in a small gallery were the books, arranged in carved oaken cases. They consisted principally of old polemical writers, and were much more worn by time than use. In the centre of the library was a solitary table with two or three books on it, an inkstand without ink, and a few pens parched by long disuse. The place seemed fitted for quiet study and profound meditation. It was buried deep among the massive walls of the abbey, and shut up from the tumult of the world. I could only hear now and then the shouts of the schoolboys faintly swelling from the cloisters, and the sound of a bell tolling for prayers, echoing soberly along the roofs of the abbey. By degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter and fainter, and at length died away; the bell ceased to toll, and a profound silence reigned through the dusky hall. I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously bound in parchment, with brass clasps, and seated myself at the table in a venerable elbow-chair. Instead of reading, however, I was beguiled by the solemn monastic air, and lifeless quiet of the place, into a train of musing. As I looked around upon the old volumes in their mouldering covers, thus ranged on the shelves, and apparently never disturbed in their repose, I could not but consider the library a kind of literary catacomb, where authors, like mummies, are piously entombed, and left to blacken and moulder in dusty oblivion. How much, thought I, has each of these volumes, now thrust aside with such indifference, cost some aching head! how many weary days! how many sleepless nights! How have their authors buried themselves in the solitude of cells and cloisters; shut themselves up from the face of man, and the still more blessed face of nature ; and devoted themselves to painful research and intense reflection ! And all for what ? to occupy an inch of dusty shelf — to have the title of their works read now and then in a future age, by sorne drowsy churchman or casual straggler like myself; and in another age to be lost, even to remembrance. Such is the amount of this boasted im- mortality. A mere temporary rumor, a local sound ; like the THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 67 tone of that bell which has just tolled among these towers, fill- ing the ear for a moment — lingering transiently in echo — and then passing away like a thing that was not ! While I sat half murmuring, half meditating these unprofit- able speculations, with my head resting on my hand, I was thrumming with the other hand upon the quarto, until I acci- dentally loosened the clasps ; when, to my utter astonishment, the little book gave two or three yawns, like one awaking from a deep sleep ; then a husky " hem " ; and at length began to talk. At first its voice was very hoarse and broken, being much troubled by a cobweb which some studious spider had woven across it ; and having probably contracted a cold from long ex- posure to the chills and damps of the abbey. In a short time, however, it became more distinct, and I soon found it an ex- ceedingly fluent, conversable little tome. Its language, to be sure, was rather quaint and obsolete, and its pronunciation, what in the present day would be deemed barbarous; but I shall endeavor, as far as I am able, to render it in modern par- lance. It began with railings about the neglect of the world — about merit being suffered to languish in obscurity, and other such commonplace topics of literary repining, and complained bit- terly that it had not been opened for more than two centuries. That the dean only looked now and then into the library, some- times took down a volume or two, trifled with them for a few moments, and then returned them to their shelves. " What a plague do they mean," said the little quarto, which I began to perceive was somewhat choleric — " what a plague do they mean by keeping several thousand volumes of us shut up here, and watched by a set of old vergers, like so many beauties in a harem, merely to be looked at now and then by the dean? Books were written to give pleasure and to be enjoyed ; and I would have a rule passed that the dean should pay each of us a visit at least once a year ; or, if he is not equal to the task, let them once in a while turn loose the whole School of West- minster among us, that at any rate we may now and then have an airing." " Softly, my worthy friend," replied I ; " you are not aware how much better you are off than most books of your genera- tion. By being stored away in this ancient library, you are like 68 IRVING the treasured remains of those saints and monarchs which lie enshrined in the adjoining chapels ; while the remains of your contemporary mortals, left to the ordinary course of nature, have long since returned to dust." *' Sir," said the little tome, ruffling his leaves and looking big, " I was written for all the world, not for the bookworms of an abbey. I was intended to circulate from hand to hand, like other great contemporary works ; but here have I been clasped up for more than two centuries, and might have silently fallen a prey to these worms that are playing the very vengeance with my intestines, if you had not by chance given me an opportunity of uttering a few last words before I go to pieces." " My good friend," rejoined I, " had you been left to the circulation of which you speak, you would long ere this have been no more. To judge from your physiognomy, you are now well stricken in years : very few of your contemporaries can be at present in existence; and those few owe their lon- gevity to being immured like yourself in old libraries ; which, suffer me to add, instead of likening to harems, you might more properly and gratefully have compared to those infifmaries at- tached to religious estabhshments, for the benefit of the old and decrepit, and where, by quiet fostering and no employment, they often endure to an amazingly good-for-nothing old age. You talk of your contemporaries as if in circulation — where do we meet with their works ? What do we hear of Robert Grosse- teste, of Lincoln ? No one could have toiled harder than he for immortahty. He is said to have written nearly two hundred volumes. He built, as it were, a pyramid of books to per- petuate his name ; but, alas ! the pyramid has long since fallen, and only a few fragments are scattered in various libraries, where they are scarcely disturbed even by the antiquarian. What do we hear of Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian, an- tiquary, philosopher, theologian, and poet? He declined two bishoprics, that he might shut himself up and write for pos- terity : but posterity never inquires after his labors. What of Henry of Huntingdon, who, besides a learned history of Eng- land, wrote a treatise on the contempt of the world, which the world has revenged by forgetting him? What is quoted of Joseph of Exeter, styled the miracle of his age in classical com- position ? Of his three great heroic poems one is lost forever, THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 69 excepting a mere fragment ; the others are known only to a few of the curious in literature ; and as to his love-verses and epi- grams, they have entirely disappeared. What is in current use of John Wallis, the Franciscan, who acquired the name of the ' Tree of Life ' ? Of William of Malmesbury ; of Simeon of Durham ; of Benedict of Peterborough ; of John Hanvill of St. Albans; of " " Prithee, friend," cried the quarto, in a testy tone, " how old do you think me ? You are talking of authors that lived before my time, and wrote either in Latin or French, so that they in a manner expatriated themselves, and deserved to be forgot- ten ; ^ but I, sir, was ushered into the world from the press of the renowned Wynkyn de Worde. I was written in my own native tongue, at a time when the language had become fixed ; and indeed I was considered a model of pure and elegant English." (I should observe that these remarks were couched in such intolerably antiquated terms, that I have had infinite difficulty in rendering them into modern phraseology.) " I cry your mercy," said I, " for mistaking your age ; but it matters Httle : almost all the writers of your time have likewise passed into forgetfulness ; and De Worde's publications are mere literary rarities among book-collectors. The purity and stability of language, too, on which you found your claims to perpetuity, have been the fallacious dependence of authors of every age, even back to the times of the worthy Robert of Glou- cester, who wrote his history in rhymes of mongrel Saxon.^ Even now many talk of Spenser's ' Well of pure English unde- filed ' as if the language ever sprang from a well or fountain- head, and was not rather a mere confluence of various tongues, perpetually subject to changes and intermixtures. It is this which has made English literature so extremely mutable, and the reputation built upon it so fleeting. Unless thought can be committed to something more permanent and unchangeable 1 " In Latin and French hath many Gowre, in the time of Richard the Sec- soueraine wittes had great delyte to en- ond, and after them of John Scogan and dite, and have many noble thinges ful- John Lydgate, monke of Berrie, our filde, but certes there ben some that said toong was brought to an excellent speaken their poisye in French, of which passe, notwithstanding that it never speche the Frenchmen have as ^ood a came unto the type of perfection until fantasye as we have in hearymg of the time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein Frenchmen's Englishe."— C/tawcer, "Tes- John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum, John tament of Love." Fox, and sundrie learned and excellent 2 Holinshed, in his " Chronicle," ob- writers, have fully accomplished the or- serves: "Afterwards, also, by deligent nature of the same, to their great praise travell of Gefiry Chaucer and of John and immortal commendation." 70 IRVING than such a medium, even thought must share the fate of every- thing else, and fall into decay. This should serve as a check upon the vanity and exultation of the most popular writer. He finds the language in which he has embarked his fame gradually altering, and subject to the dilapidations of time and the caprice of fashion. He looks back and beholds the early authors of his country, once the favorites of their day, supplanted by modern writers. A few short ages have covered them with obscurity, and their merits can only be relished by the quaint taste of the bookworm. And such, he anticipates, will be the fate of his own work, which, however it may be admired in its day, and held up as a model of purity, will in the course of years grow antiquated and obsolete ; until it shall become almost as unin- telligible in its native land as an Egyptian obeHsk, or one of those Runic inscriptions said to exist in the deserts of Tartary. I declare," added I, with some emotion, " when I contemplate a modern library, filled with new works, in all the bravery of rich gilding and binding, I feel disposed to sit down and weep ; like the good Xerxes, when he surveyed his army, pranked out in all the splendor of military array, and reflected that in one hundred years not one of them would be in existence ! " ** Ah," said the little quarto, with a heavy sigh, " I see how it is ; these modern scribblers have superseded all the good old authors. I suppose nothing is read nowadays but Sir Philip Sidney's * Arcadia,' Sackville's stately plays, and ' Mirror for Magistrates,' or the fine-spun euphuisms of the ' unparalleled John Lyly.' " " There you are again mistaken," said I ; '* the writers whom you suppose in vogue, because they happened to be so when you were last in circulation, have long since had their day. Sir Philip Sidney's * Arcadia,' the immortality of which was so fondly predicted by his admirers,^ and which, in truth, is full of noble thoughts, delicate images, and graceful turns of lan- guage, is now scarcely ever mentioned. Sackville has strutted into obscurity ; and even Lyly, though his writings were once the delight of a court, and apparently perpetuated by a proverb, '"Live ever sweete booke; the sim- the pith of morale and intellectual vir- ple image of his gentle witt, and the tues, the arme of Bellona in the field, golden-pillar of his noble courage; and the tonge of Suada in the chamber, the ever notify unto the world that thy sprite of Practise in esse, and the para- writer was the secretary of eloquence, gon of excellency in print."— Harvey the breath of the muses, the honey-bee Pierce, " Supererogation." of the daintyest flowers of witt and arte, THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 71 is now scarcely known even by name. A whole crowd of au- thors who wrote and wrangled at the time have likewise gone down, with all their writings and their controversies. Wave after wave of succeeding literature has rolled over them, until they are buried so deep that it is only now and then that some industrious diver after fragments of antiquity brings up a speci- men for the gratification of the curious. " For my part," I continued, '' I consider this mutability of language a wise precaution of £rpyjdence for the benefit of the world at^ large, and of authors in particular. To reason from analog, we daily behold the varied and beautiful tribes of vege- tables springing up, flourishing, adorning the fields for a short time, and then fading into dust, to make way for their successors. Were not this the case, the fecundity of nature would be a griev- ance instead of a blessing. The earth would groan with rank and excessive vegetation, and its surface become a tangled wil- derness. In like manner the works of genius and learning de- chne, and make way for subsequent productions. Language gradually varies, and with it fade away the writings of authors who have flourished their allotted time ; otherwise, the creative powers of genius would overstock the world, and the mind would be completely bewildered in the endless mazes of Htera- ture. Formerly there were some restraints on this excessive multiplication. Works had to be transcribed by hand, which was a slow and laborious operation ; they were written either on parchment, which was expensive, so that one work was often erased to make way for another; or on papyrus, which was fragile and extremely perishable. Authorship was a limited and unprofitable craft, pursued chiefly by monks in the leisure and solitude of their cloisters. The accumulation of manu- scripts was slow and costly, and confined almost entirely to monasteries. To these circumstances it may, in some measure, be owing that we have not been inundated by the intellect of antiquity ; that the fountains of thought have not been broken up, and modern genius drowned in the deluge. But the in- ventions of paper and the press have put an end to all these restraints. They have made everyone a writer, and enabled every mind to pour itself into print, and diflfuse itself over the whole intellectual world. The consequences are alarming. The stream of literature has swollen into a torrent — augmented into 72 IRVING a river — expanded into a sea. A few centuries since five or six hundred manuscripts constituted a great library; but what would you say to libraries such as actually exist containing three or four hundred thousand volumes ; legions of authors at the same time busy ; and the press going on with activity, to double and quadruple the number. Unless some unforeseen mortality should break out among the progeny of the Muse, now that she has become so prolific, I tremble for posterity. I fear the mere fluctuation of language will not be sufficient. Criticism may do much. It increases with the increase of literature, and re- sembles one of those salutary checks on population spoken of by economists. All possible encouragement, therefore, should be given to the growth of critics, good or bad. But I fear all will be in vain ; let criticism do what it may, writers will write, printers will print, and the world will inevitably be overstocked with good books. It will soon be the employment of a lifetime merely to learn their names. Many a man of passable informa- tion, at the present day, reads scarcely anything but reviews ; and before long a man of erudition will be little better than a mere walking catalogue." " My very good sir," said the little quarto, yawning most drearily in my face, *' excuse my interrupting you, but I per- ceive you are rather given to prose. I would ask the fate of an author who was making some noise just as I left the world. His reputation, however, was considered quite temporary. The learned shook their heads at him, for he was a poor half-edu- cated varlet, that knew little of Latin, and nothing of Greek, and had been obHged to run the country for deer-stealing. I think his name was Shakespeare. I presume he soon sunk into ob- livion." " On the contrary," said I, " it is owing to that very man that the literature of his period has experienced a duration beyond the ordinary term of English literature. There rise authors now and then, who seem proof against the mutability of language, because they have rooted themselves in the unchanging princi- ples of human nature. They are like gigantic trees that we sometimes see on the banks of a stream ; which, by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the mere surface, and lay- ing hold on the very foundations of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being swept away by the ever-flowing cur- THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE 73 rent, and hold up many a neighboring plant, and, perhaps, worthless weed, to perpetuity. Such is the case with Shake- speare, whom we behold defying the encroachments of time, retaining in modern use the language and literature of his day, and giving duration to many an indifferent author, merely from having flourished in his vicinity. But even he, I grieve to say, is gradually assuming the tint of age, and his whole form is overrun by a profusion of commentators, who, like clambering vines and creepers, almost bury the noble plant that upholds them." Here the little quarto began to heave his sides and chuckle, until at length he broke out in a plethoric fit of laughter that had wellnigh choked him, by reason of his excessive corpulency. '' Mighty well! " cried he, as soon as he could recover breath; " mighty well ! and so you would persuade me that the litera- ture of an age is to be perpetuated by a vagabond deer-stealer! by a man without learning; by a poet, forsooth — a poet!" And here he wheezed forth another fit of laughter. I confess that I felt somewhat nettled at this rudeness, which, however, I pardoned on account of his having flourished in a less polished age. I determined, nevertheless, not to give up my point. " Yes," resumed I, positively, " a poet; for of all writers he has the best chance for immortality. Others may write from the head, but he writes from the heart, and the heart will always understand him. He is the faithful portrayer of nature, whose features are always the same, and always interesting. Prose- writers are voluminous and unwieldy; their pages are crowded with commonplaces, and their thoughts expanded into tedious- ness. But with the true poet everything is terse, touching, or brilliant. He gives the choicest thoughts in the choicest lan- guage. He illustrates them by everything that he sees most striking in nature and art. He enriches them by pictures of human life, such as it is passing before him. His writings, therefore, contain the spirit, the aroma, if I may use the phrase, of the age in which he lives. They are caskets which enclose within a small compass the wealth of the language — its family jewels, which are thus transmitted in a portable form to pos- terity. The setting may occasionally be antiquated, and require now and then to be renewed, as in the case of Chaucer; but the 74 IRVING brilliancy and intrinsic value of the gems continue unaltered. Cast a look back over the long reach of literary history. What vast valleys of dulness, filled with monkish legends and academ- ical controversies ! what bogs of theological speculations ! what dreary wastes of metaphysics ! Here and there only do we be- hold the heaven-illuminated bards, elevated like beacons on their widely separate heights, to transmit the pure light of poetical intelHgence from age to age." * ^ I was just about to launch forth into eulogiums upon the poets of the day, when the sudden opening of the door caused me to turn my head. It was the verger, who came to inform me that it was time to close the library. I sought to have a parting word with the quarto, but the worthy little tome was silent ; the clasps were closed ; and it looked perfectly uncon- scious of all that had passed. I have been to the library two or three times since, and have endeavored to draw it into further conversation, but in vain ; and whether all this rambling col- loquy actually took place, or whether it was another of those odd day-dreams to which I am subject, I have never to this moment been able to discover. Thorow earth and waters deepe. As are the golden leves The pen by skill doth passe; That drop from poet's head! And featly nyps the worldes abuse, Which doth surmount our common And shoes us in a glasse talke The vertu and the vice As farre as dross doth lead. Of every wight alyve: _" Churchyard." The honey-comb that bee doth make Is not so sweet in hyve, KEAN'S ACTING BY RICHARD HENRY DANA RICHARD HENRY DANA 1787— 1879 Richard Henry Dana, whose career must not be confounded with that of his son, Richard Henry Dana, Junior, the author of " Two Years before the Mast," was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1787. He spent three years at Harvard, and was admitted to the bar in 181 1. The law, however, had no attraction for him, and he soon devoted him- self to literary pursuits. In 1814 he assisted in founding the " North American Review " in Boston, and in 1818 became one of its editors. During this period he contributed to that magazine a series of critical papers, notably one reviewing the entire field of English poetry down to Wordsworth, which gave proof of his fine culture and literary ability. He published two psychological novels, " Tom Thornton " and " Paul Felton," now seldom read, and a volume of poems likewise too meta- physical to gain permanent popularity. His lectures on Shakespeare, which were well received and greatly admired, are perhaps his best and most successful literary efifort. His admirable essay on " Kean's Acting " shows his profound appreciation of Shakespeare, and gives an excellent idea of his literary acumen and artistic temperament. Few dramatic criticisms contain such subtle an- alyses of an actor's interpretation, few are more suggestive and in- structive. In 1850 Dana published an edition of his collected works in two volumes. He seldom wrote for publication after this, and was but rarely seen in public, passing his summers at Manchester-by-the-Sea, and his winters at Boston. He died in 1879, at the advanced age of ninety-two. Taken as a whole, Dana's work is somewhat disappointing, inas- much as it failed in the fulfilment of the promises of his youth. His influence extended only to the limited circle of the cultured and refined. His literary style is classic and severe, perfectly polished, faultless in forrn, but somewhat cold and colorless. In his literary criticisms he is at his best. Here his style is admirably adapted to the subject, and his , acute discernment and keen analytical powers find their proper field. 76 KEAN^S ACTING I HAD scarcely thought of the theatre for several years, \ when Kean arrived in this country ; and it was more from ' curiosity than from any other motive, that I went to see, \ for the first time, the great actor of the age. I was soon lost to | the recollection of being in a theatre, or looking upon a grand { display of the " mimic art." The simplicity, earnestness, and \ sincerity of his acting made me forgetful of the fiction, and i bore me away with the power of reality and truth. If this be | acting, said I, as I returned home, I may as well make the the- j atre my school, and henceforward study nature at second hand, i How can I describe one who is nearly as versatile and almost ; as full of beauties as nature itself — who grows upon us the i more we are acquainted with him, and makes us sensible that \ the first time we saw him in any part, however much he may i have moved us, we had but a vague and poor apprehension of ; the many excellencies of his acting. We cease to consider it '' as a mere amusement: It is a great intellectual feast; and he | who goes to it with a disposition and capacity to relish it will \ receive from it more nourishment for his mind than he would be likely to in many other ways in fourfold the time. Our j faculties are opened and enlivened by it; our reflections and ; recollections are of an elevated kind ; and the very voice which I is sounding in our ears long after we have left him creates an inward harmony which is for our good. '. Kean, in truth, stands very much in that relation to other \ players whom we have seen, that Shakespeare does to other ] dramatists. One player is called classical ; another makes fine I points here, and another there. Kean makes more fine points I than all of them together ; but in him these are only little prom- ; inences, showing their bright heads above a beautifully un- ■ dulated surface. A constant change is going on in him, par- ; taking of the nature of the varying scenes he is passing through, \ 77 i 78 DANA and the many thoughts and feelings which are shifting within him. In a clear autumnal day we may see here and there a deep white cloud shining with metallic brightness against a blue sky, and now and then a dark pine swinging its top in the wind with the melancholy sound of the sea ; but who can note the shifting and untiring play of the leaves of the wood and their passing hues, when each one seems a living thing full of delight, and vain of its gaudy attire ? A sound, too, of universal harmony is in our ears, and a wide-spread beauty before our eyes, which we cannot define; yet a joy is in our hearts. Our delight in- creases in these, day after day, the longer we give ourselves to them, till at last we become as it were a part of the existence without us. So it is with natural characters. They grow up- on us imperceptibly till we become fast bound up in them, we scarce know when or how. So it will fare with the actor who is deeply filled with nature, and is perpetually throwing off her beautifu||^jjigng2^;;gfljjgs. Instead of becoming tired of him, as we do, after a time, of others, he will go on, giving something which will be new to the observing mind ; and will keep the feelings alive, because their action will be natural. I have no doubt that, excepting those who go to a play as children look into a show-box to admire and exclaim at distorted figures, and raw, unharmonious colors, there is no man of a moderately warm temperament, and with a tolerable share of insight into human nature, who would not find his interest in Kean increasing with a study of him. It is very possible that the excitement would in some degree lessen, but there would be a quieter delight, in- stead of it, stealing upon him as he became familiar with the character of his acting. The versatility in his playing is striking. He seems not the same being, taking upon him at one time the character of Rich- ard, at another that of Hamlet ; but the two characters appear before you as distinct individuals, who had never known nor heard of each other. So completely does he become the char- acter he is to represent that we have sometimes thought it a reason why he was not universally better liked here in Richard ; and that because the player did not make himself a little more visible, he must needs bear a share of our hate towards the cruel king. And this may the more be the case, as his construction of KEAN'S ACTING 79 the character, whether right or wrong, creates in us an unmixed disHke of Richard, till the anguish of his mind makes him the object of pity ; from which moment to the close, Kean is allowed to play the part better than anyone has before him. In his highest wrought passion, when every limb and muscle are alive and quivering, and his gestures hurried and violent, nothing appears ranted or over-acted ; because he makes us feel that, with all this, there is something still within him vainly struggling for utterance. The very breaking and harshness of his voice in these parts, though upon the whole it were better otherwise, help to this impression upon us, and make up in a good degree for the defect. Though he is on the very verge of truth in his passionate parts, he does not pass into extravagance ; but runs along the dizzy edge of the roaring and beating sea, with feet as sure as we walk our parlors. •We feel that he is safe, for some preter- natural spirit upholds him as it hurries him onward ; and while all IS uptorn and tossing in the whirl of the passions, we see that there is a power and order over the whole. A man has feelings sometimes which can only be breathed out; there is no utterance for them in words. I had hardly written this when the terrible and indistinct, " Ha ! " with which Kean makes Lear hail Cornwall and Regan, as they enter, in the fourth scene of the second act, came to my mind. That cry seemed at the time to take me up and sweep me along in its wild swell. No description in the world could give a tolerably clear notion of it ; it must be formed, as well as it may be, from what has just been said of its effect. Kean's playing is frequently giving instances of various, in- articulate sounds — the throttled struggle of rage, and the chok- ing of grief — the broken laugh of extreme suffering, when the mind is ready to deliver itself over to an insane joy — the utter- ance of over-full love, which cannot, and would not speak in express words — and that of bewildering grief, which blanks all the faculties of man. No other player whom I have heard has attempted these, ex- cept now and then ; and should anyone have made the trial in the various ways in which Kean gives them, no doubt he would have failed. Kean thrills us with them as if they were wrung from him in his agony. They have no appearance of study or 8o DANA artifice. The truth is, that the labor of a mind of his genius constitutes its existence and delight. It is not like the toil of ordinary men at their task-work. What shows effort in them comes from him with the freedom and force of nature. Some object to the frequent use of such sounds ; and to others they are quite shocking. But those who permit themselves to consider that there are really violent passions in man's nature, and that they utter themselves a little differently from our ordi- nary feelings, understand and feel their language, as they speak to us in Kean. Probably no actor ever conceived passion with the intenseness and life that he does. It seems to enter into him and possess him, as evil spirits possessed men of old. It is curious to observe how some who have sat very contentedly year after year, and called the face-making which they have seen expression, and the stage-stride dignity, and the noisy declamation, and all the rhnf\nrr\nnfi\