Rose leaves and buds, the season's flowers, Scenting afresh the summer hours, The ruddy morn, the evening's close, Day's labors long and night's repose.
BERRIES. Tuesday, 1. Rise with the sun, if you would keep the commandments. The sleep you get before midnight goes to virtue; after sunrise, to vice. "It is wise," says Aristotle, "to be up before daybreak, for such habit contributes to health, wealth, and wisdom." If this virtue, commended alike by antiquity and by our sense of self-respect, has fallen into discredit in modern times, it was practised by our forefathers and bore its fruits. They "With much shorter and far sweeter sleep content, Vigorous and fresh about their labors went." "He that in the morning hath heard the voice of virtue," says Confucius, "may die at night." And it were virtuous to rise early during our June mornings to breakfast on strawberries with the robins, or what were as good, partake of Leigh Hunt's delicious Essay on these berries. One tastes them from his potted pages. And his very quotations are palatable. "My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holburn, I saw good strawberries in your garden there; I pray you send for some of them." An ancient may read "Concord" instead of "my Lord of Ely's" gardens, and enjoy the sight moreover of his grandson's vermilioned fingers while picking them; the berries in no wise inferior to his Lordship's in flavor or color, and far larger in size,—that Yankee superstition. But one tastes none like the wild ones plucked fresh from the meadows of his native place, while the dews sparkled in the grasses, and the bobolink sought to decoy him from her nest there when he approached it. The lay lingers in the ear still:— "A single note, so sweet and low, Like a full heart's overflow, Forms the prelude,—but the strain Gives us no sweet tone again; For the wild and saucy song Leaps and skips the notes among With such quick and sportive play, Ne'er was merrier, madder lay." Herrick dished his with fresh cream from his "little buttery":— "You see the cream but naked is, Nor dances in the eye Without a strawberry, Or some fine tincture like to this Which draws the sight thereto." So Milton's Eve in Eden,— "From many a berry and from sweet kernels pressed, She tempered dulcet creams." And Aratus, whom St. Paul quotes concerning the gods, calls the berries in aid in describing the roseate cheek of health:— "Fair flesh like snow with vermilion mixed," a line that took Goethe's fancy when composing his Theory of Colors. Randolph, too, Ben Jonson's young friend, rides out of London with "worthy Stafford" in quest of some,— "Come, spur away, I have no patience for a longer stay; But I must go down And leave the changeable air of this great town. I will the country see, Where old simplicity, Though hid in gray, Doth look more gay Than foppery in plush and scarlet clad; Farewell ye city wits that are Almost at city war,— 'Tis time that I grew wise when all the world is mad. "Here from the tree We'll cherries pluck, and pick the strawberry; And every day Go see the wholesome girls make hay, Whose brown hath lovelier grace Than any painted face That I do know Hyde Park can show. "Then full, we'll seek a shade, And hear what music's made; How Philomel Her tale doth tell, And how the other birds do fill the choir, The thrush and blackbird lend their throats, Warbling melodious notes, We will all sports enjoy that others do desire." The strawberry, it appears, was not restored to gardens till within a century or two back. Evelyn mentions "planting them out of the woods." I do not find it mentioned as a cultivated plant in the Greek or Roman rural authors. Phillips, in his History of Fruits, gives this pleasant account of the origin of its name. That of "an ancient practice of children threading the wild berries upon straws of grass," somewhat as rude country boys thread birds' egg-shells like beads, as ornaments for their mirrors. He says that this is still a custom in parts of England where they abound, and that so many "straws of berries" are sold for a penny,—a more picturesque style of marketing than in pottles, or boxes. Evelyn mentions the kinds common in his time: Common Wood, English, American, or Virginia, Polona, White, Ivy Red, the Green, and Scarlet. Culpepper, in his British Herbal, says: "This plant is so well known that it needs no description. It grows in woods and is planted in gardens. It flowers in May; the fruit ripens soon after. Venus owns the herb. The fruit, when green, is cool and dry; but when ripe, cool and moist." He gives a list of its medical virtues, among which, he says, "the water of the berries, carefully distilled, is a remedy and cordial in the panting and beating of the heart." It were almost worth having this trouble to be cured by his strawberry cordials. He describes the raspberry, also called thimbleberry, and ascribes to it similar medical virtues. Of bilberries, he says there are two sorts common in England,—the black and red. The red bilberry he calls "whortleberry," and says: "The black groweth in forests, on the heath, and such like barren places. The red grows in the north parts of this land, as Lancashire, Yorkshire, etc., flowers in March and April, the fruit ripening in July and August." "Both are under the dominion of Jupiter," and, if we may believe him, are very virtuous, it being "a pity they are used no more in physic than they are." In August we gather as good in OUR BLUEBERRY SWAMP. "Orange groves mid-tropic lie, Festal for the Spaniard's eye, And the red pomegranate grows Where the luscious southwest blows; Myrrh and spikenard in the East Multiply the Persian's feast, And our northern wilderness Boasts its fruits our lips to bless. Wouldst enjoy a magic sight, And so heal vexation's spite? Hasten to my blueberry swamp,— Green o'erhead the wild bird's camp; Here in thickets bending low, Thickly piled the blueberries grow, Freely spent on youth and maid, In the deep swamp's cooling shade, Pluck the clusters plump and full, Handful after handful pull! Choose which path, the fruitage hangs,— Fear no more the griping fangs Of the garden's spaded stuff,— This is healthy, done enough. Pull away! the afternoon Dies beyond the meadow soon. Art thou a good citizen? Move into a blueberry fen; Here are leisure, wealth, and ease, Sure thy taste and thought to please, Drugged with nature's spicy tunes, Hummed upon the summer noons. "Rich is he that asks no more Than of blueberries a store, Who can snatch the clusters off, Pleased with himself and them enough. Fame?—the chickadee is calling;— Love?—the fat pine cones are falling; Heaven?—the berries in the air,— Eternity—their juice so rare. And if thy sorrows will not fly, Then get thee down and softly die. In the eddy of the breeze, Leave the world beneath those trees, And the purple runnel's tune Melodize thy mossy swoon." W. E. Channing.
LETTERS. Thursday, 3. "Love is the life of friendship; letters are The life of love, the loadstones that by rare Attractions make souls meet and melt, and mix, As when by fire exalted gold we fix." But for letters the best of our life would hardly survive the mood and the moment. Prompted by so lively a sentiment as friendship, we commit to our leaves what we should not have spoken. To begin with "Dear Friend" is in itself an address which clothes our epistle in a rhetoric the most select and choice. We cannot write it without considering its fitness and taxing our conscience in the matter. 'Tis coming to the confessional, leaving nothing in reserve that falls gracefully into words. A life-long correspondence were a biography of the correspondents. Preserve your letters till time define their value. Some secret charm forbids committing them to the flames; the dews of the morning may sparkle there still, and remind one of his earlier Eden. "Deeds are masculine, words feminine; letters are neither," wrote Howel. Rather say, letters are both, and better represent life than any form in literature. Women have added the better part, the most celebrated letters having been written by women. If your morning's letter is not answered and dispatched forthwith, 'tis doubtful if it will ever be written. Then there are those to whom one never writes, much as he may wish to cultivate correspondence. He reserves them for personal intercourse. I hardly know which I most enjoy, the letter I send after my visitor, or the visit itself: the presence, the conversation, the recollection. Memory idealizes anticipation; our visit is made before we make it, made afterwards, as if love were a reminiscence of pleasures once partaken in overflowing fulness. The visit that is not all we anticipated is not made; we meet as idealists, if we meet at all. My moments are not mine, thou art in sight By days' engagements and the dreams of night, Nor dost one instant leave me free Forgetful of thy world and thee. The popular superstition favors long visits. I confess my experience has not borne out the current creed. Compliment, of course, is of the other opinion, if we must take her fine accents of "stay, stay longer." But a week's stay with an angel would hardly bear the epithet angelic after it was over. Fewer and farther between. Good things are good to keep long by temperate use. 'Tis true a visitor who comes seldom should not fly away forthwith. And 'tis a comfort in these fast times to catch one who has a little leisure on hand, deaf the while to the engine's whistle. Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary. But if one does not stay while staying, better let him go where he is gone the while. One enjoys a visitor who has much leisure in him, in her especially,—likes to take his friends by sips sweetly, not at hasty draughts, as they were froth and would effervesce forthwith and subside. Who has not come from an interview as from a marriage feast, feeling "the good wine had been kept for him till now"?
Does it imply a refinement in delicacy that nuptial verses have no place with us in marriage ceremonies; that the service has lost the mystic associations wont to be thrown around it by our ancestors down almost to our time? Once epithalamium verses were esteemed the fairest flowers, the ornament of the occasion. If the poet sometimes overstepped modern notions of reserve, the sentiments expressed were not the less natural if more freely dealt with. Spenser, for instance, suggests the loveliest images, and with all his wealth of fancy ventures never a glimpse that a bride can blame; while Donne delights in every posture of fancy, as if he were love's attorney putting in his plea for all delights,—yet delicately, oftentimes, and on other occasions, as in these lines entitled "Love Tokens":— "Send me some token that my hope may live, Or that my ceaseless thoughts may sleep and rest; Send me some honey to make sweet my hive, That in my passions I may hope the best. I beg no ribbon wrought with thine own hands To knit our loves in the fantastic strain Of new-touched youth; nor ring to show the stands Of our affection:—that as that's round and plain, So should our loves meet in simplicity,— No, nor the corals which thy wrist infold Laced up together in congruity To show our thoughts should rest in the same hold: No, nor thy picture, though most gracious, And most desired since 'tis like the best, Nor witty lines which are most copious Within the writings which thou hast addressed: Send me not this, nor that, to increase my store, But swear thou think'st I love thee, and no more." To the Lady Goodyeare he writes:— "Madam:—I am not come out of England if I remain in the noblest part of it, your mind. Yet I confess it is too much diminution to call your mind any part of England, or this world, since every part of even your body deserves titles to a higher dignity. No Prince would be loath to die that were assured of so fair a tomb to preserve his memory. But I have a greater advantage than this, for since there is a religion in friendship, and death in absence, to make up an entire friend there must needs be a heaven too; and there can be no heaven so proportional to that religion and that death, as your favor. And I am the gladder that it is a heaven, than it were a court, or any other high place of this world, because I am likelier to have a room there, and better, cheap. Madam, my best treasure is time, and my best employment of that (next my thoughts of thankfulness to my Redeemer) is to study good wishes for you, in which I am, by continual meditation, so learned that any creature except your own good angel, when it does you most good, might be content to come and take instruction from Your humble and affectionate servant, J. D. Amyens, the 7th of February, year 1611."
What delicacy of compliment, coupled with nobility of sentiment, the fresh color of flattery not less, the rhetoric so graceful. One asks if our New-England reserve has added any graces to the Elizabethan courtliness, and if any feel quite at home in its tight costumes. Is it a want of taste if one is taken with such courtly compliments, lofty appreciation of character, such stately idealism, extravagant as it may appear, and bordering on insincerity? I wish my behavior, my letters, my address, may blush becomingly, court my friends' eyes as well as affections, by coy diffidences, win by lively phrase, telling how lovely presence is. Friendship is a plant that loves the sun,—thrives ill under clouds. I know temperaments have their zones, and can excuse the frigid manner of some in whose breasts there burns a hidden flame. There is a reserve that seems to fear the affections will be frosted by exposure, if not protected from any wind of acknowledgment. If "your humble servant" is written seldomer at the end of the letter, and "Sir" and "Madam" have dropped the once "Dear" and "My Dear"—used these adjectively for ceremony's sake,—the address has lost so much warmth and all the abandon the words once implied. Must I withhold expressing all I would, lest I should seem to imply more than I meant? And has one nothing personal and private to communicate? It were not unbecoming to inquire if our Puritan culture still held us in check, life and literature were under eclipse, and the shadow threatening to become central and total.
Of celebrated letters, Pliny's are among the most delightful. A perusal of them refreshes and restores the old faith in persons and the possibilities of friendship. Alas for an age, if indifferent to this antique of virtue, the fair fellowships it celebrates, in the noble names of which he gives so many illustrious examples in his charming pages. Virtue seems something to be sought, to live and die for, every accomplishment a part of it, and a possession. I confess to a feeling, as I read, so modern and consonant to ideas and designs dear to me, that for the time I seem to recover brothers and friends—if it were not egotism to say it—in the aims and ends which I have so long loved and still cherish as life's pursuit and problem. A vein of noble morality pervades these letters which renders them admirable reading for all times and ages. And his allusions to his own life and pursuits, the glimpses he gives of his friends, commend his pages to all who seek virtue and wisdom at their sources. To his friend Paternus he writes with a tenderness and humanity to which the epithet Christian would add little. "The sickness which has lately run through my family, and carried off several of my domestics, some of them, too, in the prime of their years, has deeply afflicted me. I have two consolations, however; while though they are not adequate to so considerable a loss, still they are consolations. One is, that as I have always very readily manumized my slaves, their death does not seem altogether immature, if they lived long enough to receive their freedom; the other, that I have allowed them to make a kind of will, which I observe as religiously as if they were legally entitled to that privilege. I receive and obey their last requests as so many absolute commands, suffering them to dispose of their effects to whom they please; with this single restriction, that they leave them to some of the family, which to persons in their station is to be considered as a sort of commonwealth. But though I endeavor to acquiesce under these reflections, yet the same tenderness which led me to show them these indulgences, still breaks out and renders me too sensitively affected by their deaths. However, I would not wish to be incapable of these tender impressions of humanity, though the generality of the world, I know, look upon losses of this kind in no other view than as a diminution of their property, and fancy, by cherishing such an unfeeling temper, they discover superior fortitude and philosophy. Their fortitude and philosophy I will not dispute; but humane, I am sure they are not; for it is the very criterion of true manhood to feel those impressions of sorrow which it endeavors to resist, and to admit not to be above the want of consolation. But perhaps I have detained you too long upon this subject, though not so long as I would. There is a certain pleasure in giving vent to one's grief, especially when we pour out our sorrow in the bosom of a friend, who will approve, or, at least, pardon our tears. Farewell." Again to Geminitus:— "Have you never observed a sort of people who, though they are themselves the abject slaves of every vice, show a kind of malicious indignation against the immoral conduct of others, and are the most severe to those whom they most resemble? Yet surely a beauty of disposition, even in persons who have least occasion for clemency themselves, is of all virtues the most becoming. The highest of character in my estimation, is His, who is as ready to pardon the moral errors of mankind as if he were every day guilty of some himself, and at the same time as cautious of committing a fault as if he never forgave one. It is a rule, then, which we should upon all occasions, both private and public, most religiously observe, to be inexorable to our own failings, while we treat those of the rest of the world with tenderness, not excepting even those who forgive none but themselves, remembering always that the humane, and, therefore, as well as upon other accounts, the great Thrasea, used frequently to say, 'He who hates vice hates mankind.' You will ask me, perhaps, who it is that has given occasion to these reflections. You must know a certain person lately,—but of that when we meet,—though, upon second thoughts, not even then, lest while I condemn and expose his conduct, I should act counter to that maxim I particularly recommend. Whoever, therefore, and whatever he is, shall remain in silence; for though there may be some use, perhaps, in setting a mark upon the man, for the sake of example, there will be more, however, in sparing him, for the sake of humanity." Again:— "There are, it seems," he writes to his friend Septitius, "certain persons who in your company have blamed me, as being upon all occasions too lavish in commendation of my friends. I not only acknowledge the charge, but glory in it; for, can there be a nobler error than an overflowing benevolence? But still, who are these, let me ask, that are better acquainted with my friends than I am myself? Yet, grant there are such, why will they deny me the satisfaction of so pleasing an error? For, supposing my friends deserve not the high encomiums I give them, certainly I am happy in believing they do. Let them recommend, then, this ungenerous discernment to those who imagine (and their number is not inconsiderable) that they show their judgment when they indulge their censure. As for myself, they will never persuade me that I can love my friends too well."
How amiable and just are sentiments like these rendering odious the carping censure and ill-natured criticism which finds free currency between those who, while meeting as acquaintances, perhaps affecting friendship for each other, yet speak disparagingly, and are loath to acknowledge the merit which they see in each other's character and acquirements. It is safer, and certainly more becoming, to overpraise than to undervalue and dispraise another. Faults are apparent enough, and, for the most part, superficial; in the atmosphere of affection and respect they fall away presently and disappear altogether, while virtues may be too deep sometimes and delicate in expression to be recognized readily by those who seek for blemishes rather. Modest praise is the freshest and purest atmosphere for modest virtue to thrive in and come to maturity. And the most exalted qualities of character admiration alone brings into the relief that discloses their proportions and reveals their lustre. A certain sentiment of worship insinuates itself into our affections for a near and dear friend; and while endearing us the more, yet holds us at the distance of reverence and of self-respect that belongs to the noblest friendships. 'Tis the poverty of life that renders friendship poor and cold. I am drawn to one who, while I approach yet seems distant still; whose personality has a quality so commanding as to forbid a familiarity not justified by affection and reason alike, and whom I never quite come up to, but yet is akin to me in the attributes that win my regard and insure my affection. A good man is a bashful man; he affects all who come within his influence with that grace. Do not the gods blush in descending to meet alike our affections and our eyes? "The eldest god is still a child."
BOOKS. Tuesday, 8. Next to a friend's discourse, no morsel is more delicious than a ripe book, a book whose flavor is as refreshing at the thousandth tasting as at the first. Books when friends weary, conversation flags, or nature fails to inspire. The best books appeal to the deepest in us and answer the demand. A book loses if wanting the personal element, gains when this is insinuated, or comes to the front occasionally, blending history with mythology. My favorite books have a personality and complexion as distinctly drawn as if the author's portrait were framed into the paragraphs and smiled upon me as I read his illustrated pages. Nor could I spare them from my table or shelves, though I should not open the leaves for a twelvemonth;—the sight of them, the knowledge that they are within reach, accessible at any moment, rewards me when I invite their company. Borrowed books are not mine while in hand. I covet ownership in the contents, and fancy that he who is conversant with these is the rightful owner, and moreover, that the true scholar owes to scholars a catalogue of his chosen volumes, that they may learn from whence his entertainment during leisure moments. Next to a personal introduction, a list of one's favorite authors were the best admittance to his character and manners. His library were not voluminous. He might specify his favorites on his fingers, and spare the printer's type. "Books have many charming qualities to such as know how to choose them." And without Plutarch, no library were complete. Can we marvel at his fame, or overestimate the surpassing merits of his writings? It seems as I read as if none before, none since, had written lives, as if he alone were entitled to the name of biographer,—such intimacy of insight is his, laying open the springs of character, and through his parallels portraying his times as no historian had done before: not Plato, even, in the livelier way of dialogue with his friends. Then his morals are a statement of the virtues for all times. And I read the list of his lost writings, not without a sense of personal wrong done to me, with emotions akin to what the merchant might feel in perusing the bill of freight after the loss of his vessel. Hercules, Hesiod, Pindar, Leonidas, Scipio, Augustus, Claudius, Epaminondas, minds of mark, all these and other precious pieces gone to the bottom: his books on the Academy of Plato, The Philosophers, and many more of this imperial freight, to be read by none now. Still, there remains so much to be grateful for; so many names surviving to perpetuate virtue and all that is splendid in fame, with his own. I for one am his debtor, not for noble examples alone, but for portraits of the possibilities of virtue, and all that is dearest in friendship, in his attractive pages. It is good exercise, good medicine, the reading of his books,—good for to-day, as in times it was preceding ours, salutary reading for all times. Montaigne also comes in for a large share of the scholar's regard. Opened anywhere, his page is sensible, marrowy, quotable. He may be taken up, too, and laid aside carelessly without loss, so inconsequent is his method, and he so careless of his wealth. Professing nature and honesty of speech, his page has the suggestions of the landscape, is good for striking out in any direction, suited to any mood, sure of yielding variety of information, wit, entertainment,—not to be commanded, to be sure, without grave abatements, to be read with good things growing side by side with things not such and tasting of the apple. Still, with every abatement, his book is one of the ripest and mellowest, and, bulky as it is, we wish there were more of it. He seems almost the only author whose success warrants in every stroke of his pen his right to guide it: he of the men of letters, the prince of letters; since writing of life, he omits nothing of its substance, but tells all with a courage unprecedented. His frankness is charming. So his book has indescribable attractions, being as it were a Private Book,—his diary self-edited, and offered with an honesty that wins his readers, he never having done bestowing his opulent hospitalities on him, gossiping sagely, and casting his wisdom in sport to any who care for it. Everywhere his page is alive and rewarding, and we are disappointed at finding his book comes to an end like other books. Lord Herbert's Autobiography is a like example of sincerity and naturalness. If he too often play the cavalier, and is of a temper that brooks not the suspicion of insult, he is equally eager to defend when friendship or humanity render it a duty. The brothers, Edward and George, were most estimable characters. To George how largely are we in debt for his sacred verses, the delight and edification of the saints wherever they are known. Add Vaughan and Crashaw. And making due allowance for the time when Herrick's verses were written, his temptation to suit the tastes of courtiers and kings, his volumes contain much admirable poetry, tempered with religious devotion. He wrote sweet and virtuous verse, with lines here and there that should not have been written. But he is an antidote to the vice in his lines, and may well have place in the scholar's library with Donne, Daniel, Cowley, Shakespeare, and contemporaries. If one would learn the titles and gain insight into the contents of the best books in our literature, let him track Coleridge in his readings and notes as these have been collected and published in his Literary Remains and Table Talk. He explored the wide field of literature and philosophy, and brought to light richer spoils than any scholar of his time, or since. His reading was not only choice, but miscellaneous. Nothing of permanent value appears to have escaped his searching glance, and his criticisms on books are among the most valuable contributions to British letters. He knew how to read to get and give the substance of the book in sprightly comment and annotation on the text. His judgments are final and exhaustive. To follow him were an education in itself. One's diary is attractive reading, and productive, if he have the art of keeping one. Thoreau wrote in his:— "I set down such choice experiences that my own writings may inspire me, and at last I may make wholes of parts. Certainly it is a distinct profession to rescue from oblivion and to fix the sentiments and thoughts which visit all men, more or less, generally, and that the contemplation of the unfinished picture may suggest its harmonious completion. Associate reverently and as much as you can with your loftiest thoughts. Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest-egg by the side of which another will be laid. Thoughts accidentally thrown together become a frame in which more may be developed and exhibited. Perhaps this is the main value of a habit of writing or keeping a journal,—that is, we remember our best draught, and stimulate ourselves. My thoughts are my company. They have a certain individuality and separate existence, large personality. Having by chance recorded a few disconnected thoughts and then brought them into juxtaposition, they suggest a whole new field in which it is possible to labor and think. Thought begets thought. I have a commonplace-book for facts, and another for poetry. But I find it difficult always to preserve the vague distinctions which I had in my mind, for the most interesting and beautiful facts are so much the more poetry,—and that is their success. They are translated from earth to heaven. I see that if my facts were sufficiently vital and significant, perhaps transmuted more into the substance of the human mind, I should need but one book of poetry to contain them all. "I do not know but thoughts written down thus in a journal might be printed in the same form with greater advantage than if the related ones were brought together into separate essays. They are allied to life, and can be seen by the reader not to be far-fetched; thus, more simple, less artful. I feel that in the other case, I should have a proper form for my sketches. Here facts and names and dates communicate more than we suspect. Whether the flower looks better in the nosegay than in the meadow where it grew, and we had to wet our feet to get it? Is the scholastic air any advantage? Perhaps I can never find so good a setting for thoughts as I shall thus have taken them out of. The crystal never sparkles more brightly than in the cavern. The world have always liked best the fable with the moral. The children could read the fable alone. The grown-up read both. The truth so told has the best advantages of the most abstract statement, for it is not the less universally applicable. Where else will you ever find the true cement for your thoughts? How will you ever rivet them together without leaving the marks of your file? "Yet Plutarch did not so. Montaigne did not so. Men have written travels in this form; but perhaps no man's daily life has been rich enough to be journalized. Yet one's life should be so active and progressive as to be a journey. But I am afraid to travel much, or to famous places, lest it might completely dissipate the mind. Then I am sure that what we observe at home, if we observe anything, is of more importance than what we observe abroad. The far-fetched is of least value. What we observe in travelling are to some extent the accidents of the body; but what we observe when sitting at home are in the same proportion phenomena of the mind itself. A wakeful night will yield as much thought as a long journey. If I try thoughts by their quality, not their quantity, I may find that a restless night will yield more than the longest journey." These masterpieces, Thoreau's Diaries, are a choice mingling of physical and metaphysical elements. They show the art above art which was busied about their composition. They come near fulfilling the highest ends of expression; the things seen become parts of the describer's mind, and speak through his Person. Quick with thought, his sentences are colored and consolidated therein by his plastic genius.
Of gifts, there seems none more becoming to offer a friend than a beautiful book, books of verse especially. How exquisite these verses of Crashaw's, "Addressed to a Lady with a Prayer Book." "Lo, here a little volume, but great book, Fear it not, sweet, It is no hypocrite, Much larger in itself, than in its look. "It is, in one rich handful, heaven and all Heaven's royal hosts encamp'd, thus small, To prove that true schools used to tell A thousand angels in one point can dwell. "'Tis Love's great artillery Which here contracts itself and comes to lie Close couched in your white bosom, and from thence As from a snowy fortress of defence Against the ghostly foe to take your part, And fortify the hold of your chaste heart. "It is the armory of light, Let constant use but keep it bright, You'll find it yields To holy hands and humble hearts, More swords and shields Than sin hath snares, or hell hath darts. Only be sure The hands be pure That hold these weapons, and the eyes Those of turtles, chaste and true, Wakeful and wise. "Here is a friend shall fight for you; Hold this book before your heart, Let prayer alone to play his part. "But O! the heart That studies this high art, Must be a sure housekeeper, And yet no sleeper. "Dear soul, be strong, Mercy will come ere long, And bring her bosom full of blessings; Flowers of never-fading graces To make immortal dressings For worthy souls, whose wise embraces Store up themselves for him, who is alone The spouse of virgins, and the Virgin's Son. "But if the noble bridegroom when he come Shall find the wandering heart from home, Leaving her chaste abode To gad abroad Amongst the gay mates of the god of flies, To take her pleasures, and to play And keep the devil's holiday; To dance in the sunshine of some smiling But beguiling Spear of sweet and sugared lies; Some slippery pair Of false, perhaps as fair, Flattering, but forswearing eyes, Doubtless some other heart Will get the start, And stepping in before, Will take possession of the sacred store Of hidden sweets and holy joys, Words which are not heard with ears (Those tumultuous shops of noise), Effectual whispers, whose still voice The soul itself more feels than hears; Amorous languishments, luminous trances, Sights which are not seen with eyes; Spiritual and soul-piercing glances, Whose pure and subtle lightning flies Home to the heart and sets the house on fire, And melts it down in sweet desire, Yet doth not stay To ask the window's leave to pass that way. An hundred thousand loves and graces, And many a mystic thing Which the divine embraces, Of the dear spouse of spirits with them will bring, For which it is no shame That dull mortality must not know a name. Of all this hidden store Of blessings, and ten thousand more, If when he come He find the heart from home, Doubtless he will unload Himself some otherwhere, And pour abroad His precious sweets On the fair soul whom first he meets."
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Thursday, 10. The first number of Volume III. of the "Journal of Speculative Philosophy" comes to hand, printed in fair type, with promise of attracting attention from thinkers at home and abroad. And it is a significant fact that the most appreciative notice yet taken of this Journal comes from Germany, and is written by the President of the Berlin Philosophical Society. Nor less remarkable that this first attempt to popularize Philosophy, so far as practicable, should date from the West, and show an ability in dealing with speculative questions that may well challenge the attainments of thinkers everywhere,—the translations showing a ripe scholarship, and covering almost the whole range of historic thinking.8 England, too, has at last found a metaphysician that Coleridge would have accepted and prized. And the more that he follows himself in introducing philosophy from Germany into Britain. James Hutchison Stirling's fervor and strength in advocating Hegel's ideas command the highest respect. Having had Schelling's expositor in Coleridge, we now have Hegel's in Stirling; and, in a spirit of catholicity shown to foreign thought unexpected in an Englishman, promising not a little in the way of qualifying favorably the metaphysics of Britain. Nothing profound nor absolute can be expected from minds of the type of Mill, Herbert Spencer, and the rest,—if not hostile, at least indifferent to and incapable of idealism; naturalists rather than metaphysicians. It will be a most hopeful indication if Stirling's book, the "Secret of Hegel," find students among his countrymen. Cavilling there will be, of course, misapprehension, much nonsense uttered concerning Hegel's Prime Postulates. But what was thought out fairly in Germany, must find its way and prompt comprehension in England; if not there, then here in New England, out of whose heart a fresh philosophy should spring forth, to which the German Hegel shall give impulse and furtherance. The work has already begun, with Harris's publishing the thoughts of the world's thinkers, himself familiar with the best of all thinking. I look for a more flowing, inspiring type of thought, Teutonic as Greek, of a mystic coloring transcending Boehme, Swedenborg, and freed from the biblicisms of the schools of our time. Hegel's secret is that of pure thought akin with that of Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, the ancient masters in philosophy. The One is One out of whose womb the Not One is born to perish perpetually at its birth. Whoso pronounces Person apprehensively, speaks the secret of all things, and holds the key to all mysteries in nature and spirit. For further encouragement, moreover, we are promised a translation of the complete works of Plotinus, by a learned contributor to the "Journal," who has qualifications for that service unsurpassed, perhaps, by any on this side of the Atlantic. He writes from St. Louis:— "I have tried my hand on Plotinus, and find it easy to render the text into modern philosophical phraseology. Until lately I have been unable to procure a good critical edition of the Greek philosopher. And now, if my energies are spared, a translation of his entire works is not very far in the future."9 It were a good test of one's aptitude for metaphysical studies, his appreciation of Plotinus. Profound as any predecessor of the Platonic school of idealism, he had the remarkable merit of treating ideas in a style at once transparent and subtle, dealing with these as if they were palpable things, such was his grasp of thought and felicity in handling. His themes are of universal concernment at all times. Promoting a catholic and manly method, his books were good correctives of any exclusiveness still adhering in our schools of science and divinity, while the tendencies of his time, as in ours, were towards comparative studies. A like tendency appeared, also, in England in the studies of the British Platonists, or Latitudinarians,—Dr.Henry More, Dr.Cudworth, Dr.Rust, Norris, Glanvil, John Smith, whose writings deserve a place in theological libraries, and the study of divines especially. Norris thus praises his friend Dr.More, whose works had high repute and were much studied in his day:— "Others in learning's chorus bear their part, And the great work distinctly share; Thou, our great catholic professor art, All science is annexed to thy unerring chair; Some lesser synods of the wise The Muses kept in universities; But never yet till in thy soul Had they a council oecumenical: An abstract they'd a mind to see Of all their scattered gifts, and summed them up in thee. Thou hast the arts whole Zodiac run, And fathom'st all that here is known; Strange restless curiosity, Adam himself came short of thee,— He tasted of the fruit, thou bearest away the tree." And More writes of Plotinus:— "Who such things did see, Even in the tumult that few can arrive Of all are named from philosophy, To that high pitch or to such secrets dive."10 PLOTINUS. Plotinus was by birth an Egyptian, a native of Sycopolis. He died at the conclusion of the second year of the reign of M.Aurelius Flavius Claudius, at the age of sixty-six. On his friend Eustochius coming from a distance and approaching him when dying, he said: "As yet I have expected you, and now I endeavor that my divine part may return to that divine nature which flourishes throughout the universe." Taylor says of him, "He was a philosopher pre-eminently distinguished for the strength and profundity of his intellect, and the purity and elevation of his life. He was wise without the usual mixture of human darkness, and great without the general combination of human weakness and imperfection. He seems to have left the orb of light solely for the benefit of mankind, that he might teach them how to repair the ruin contracted by their exile from good, and how to return to their true country and legitimate kindred allies. I do not mean that he descended into mortality for unfolding the sublimest truths to the multitude, for this would have been a vain and ridiculous attempt, since their eyes, as Plato justly observes, are not strong enough to look at truth. But he came as a guide to the few who are born with a divine destiny, and are struggling to gain the lost region of light, but know not how to break the fetters by which they are detained; who are impatient to leave the obscure cavern of sense, where all is delusion and shadow, and to ascend to the realms of intellect, where all is substance and reality." His biographers speak of him with the truest admiration. He was foreign from all sophistical ostentation and pride, and conducted himself in the company of disputants with the same freedom and ease as in his familiar discourses; for true wisdom, when it is deeply possessed, gives affability and modesty to the manners, illumines the countenance with a divine serenity, and diffuses over the whole external form an air of dignity and ease. Nor did he hastily disclose to every one the logical necessities latent in his conversation. He was strenuous in discourse, and powerful in discovering what was appropriate. While he was speaking, there was every indication of the predominance of intellect in his conceptions. The light of it diffused itself over his countenance, which was indeed, at all times, lovely, but was then particularly beautiful; a certain attenuated and dewy moisture appeared on his face, and a pleasing mildness shone forth. Then, also, he exhibited a gentleness in receiving questions, and demonstrated a vigor uncommonly robust in their solution. He was rapidly filled with what he read, and having in a few words given the meaning of a profound theory, he arose. He borrowed nothing from others, his conceptions being entirely his own, and his theories original. He could by no means endure to read twice what he had written. Such, indeed, was the power of his intellect, that when he had once conceived the whole disposition of his thoughts from the beginning to the end, and had afterwards committed them to writing, his composition was so connected, that he appeared to be merely transcribing a book. Hence he would discuss his domestic affairs without departing from the actual intention of his mind, and at one and the same time transact the necessary negotiations of friendship, and preserve an uninterrupted survey of the things he had proposed to consider. In consequence of this uncommon power of intellection, when he returned to writing, after the departure of the person with whom he had been conversing, he did not review what he had written; and yet he so connected the preceding with the subsequent conceptions, as if his composition had not been interrupted. Hence, he was at the same time present with others and with himself; so that the self-converted energy of his intellect was never remitted, except in sleep, which his admirable temperance in meats and drinks, and his constant conversion to intellect, contributed in no small measure to expel. Though he was attentive to his pupils and the necessary concerns of life, the intellectual energy of his soul while he was awake never suffered any interruption from externals, nor any remission of vigor. He was likewise extremely mild in his manners, and easy of access to all his friends and adherents. Hence, so great was his philosophic urbanity, that though he resided at Rome six and twenty years, and had been the arbitrator in many litigious causes which he amicably dissolved, yet he had scarcely an enemy throughout that vast and illustrious city. Indeed, he was so highly esteemed, not only by the senate and people of Rome, that the Emperor Galienus and his wife Salonica honored his person and reverenced his doctrine; and relying on his benevolence, requested that a city in Campania, which had been formerly destroyed, might be restored, and rendered a fit habitation for philosophers, and besides this, that it might be governed by the laws of Plato, and called Platonopolis.
IDEAL CULTURE. Thursday, 17. The new courses of lectures at Harvard University are advertised by the new President. They are a novelty in our college culture. A marked peculiarity is the announcement of a course to be given by Emerson, on the Natural History of Intellect; by Dr. Hedge, on Theism, Atheism, and Pantheism; and by J. Eliot Cabot, on Kant. The course, or any part of it, is open "to graduates, teachers, and other competent persons, men or women."It is hoped, also, that Hutchison Stirling may be added to the list of lecturers,—an acquisition certainly that Harvard should be proud to secure, both for its own and the credit of metaphysical studies on this side of the Atlantic. The English mind seems to have held aloof from pure metaphysics,—from German Idealism, especially. Berkeley, its finest thinker since Bacon, was for a long time misapprehended, if, indeed, he is fairly appreciated as yet. Boehme, Kant, Schelling, were unknown till Coleridge introduced their ideas to the notice of his contemporaries—Carlyle those of Goethe, and the great scholars of Germany.
"Great, indeed," says Coleridge, "are the obstacles which an English metaphysician has to encounter. Amongst his most respectable and intelligent judges, there will be many who have devoted their attention exclusively to the concerns and interests of human life, and who bring with them to the perusal of philosophical systems, an habitual aversion to all speculations, the utility and application of which are not evident and immediate. "There are others whose prejudices are still more formidable, inasmuch as they are grounded in their moral feelings and religious principles, which had been alarmed and shocked by the injurious and pernicious tenets defended by Hume, Priestley, and the French Fatalists, or Necessitarians, some of whom had perverted metaphysical reasonings to the denial of the mysteries, and, indeed, of all the peculiar doctrines of Christianity; and others, to the subversion of all distinctions between right and wrong. "A third class profess themselves friendly to metaphysics, and believe that they are themselves metaphysicians. They have no objection to system and terminology provided it be the method and nomenclature to which they have been familiarized in the writings of Locke, Hume, Hartley, Condillac, or, perhaps, Dr.Reid and Professor Stewart. "But the worst and widest impediment remains. It is the predominance of a popular philosophy, at once the counterfeit and mortal enemy of all true and manly metaphysical research. It is that corruption introduced by certain immethodical aphorisming Eclectics, who, dismissing, not only all system, but all logical consequence, pick and choose whatever is most plausible and showy; who select whatever words can have semblance of sense attached to them, without the least expenditure of thought; in short, whatever may enable men to talk of what they do not understand, with a careful avoidance of everything that might awaken them to a moment's suspicion of their ignorance."
Fifty years and more have passed since this criticism was written; and, with slight change of names for similar things, it still holds for the popular estimate put upon metaphysics by too many scholars of our time. If Coleridge, Schelling, Hegel, and the rest, are still held in disregard by persons in chairs of philosophy, we may infer the kind of culture which the universities favor. What he also said of intellectual culture in his country and time, holds scarcely less true as regards ours; and this in a republic, too, which in theory educates all its citizens.
"I am greatly deceived if one preliminary to an efficient popular education be not the recurrence to a more manly discipline of the intellect on the part of the learned themselves; in short, a thorough recasting of the moulds in which the minds of our gentry, the characters of our future landowners, magistrates, and senators, are to receive their shape and fashion. What treasures of practical wisdom would be once more brought to open day by the solution of the problem. Suffice it for the present to hint the master thought. "The first man on whom the light of an Idea dawned, did in that same moment receive the spirit and credentials of a lawgiver. And as long as man shall exist, so long will the possession of that antecedent—the maker and master of all profitable experience, which exists in the power of an idea—be the one lawful qualification for all dominion in the world of the senses. Without this, experience itself is but a Cyclops walking backwards under the fascinations of the past; and we are indebted to a lucky coincidence of outward circumstances and contingencies, least of all to be calculated on in a time like the present, if this one-eyed experience does not seduce its worshippers into practical anachronisms. But, alas! the halls of the old philosophers have been so long deserted, that we circle them at shy distance, as the haunt of phantoms and chimeras. The sacred grave of Academus is held in like regard with the unfruitful trees in the shadowy world of Maro, that had a dream attached to every leaf. The very terms of ancient wisdom are worn out; or, far worse, stamped as baser metal; and whoever should have the hardihood to re-proclaim its solemn truths, must commence with a glossary."
The Dialectic, or Method of the Mind, constitutes the basis of all culture. Without a thorough discipline in this, our schools and universities give but a showy and superficial training. The knowledge of mind is the beginning of all knowledge; without this a theology is baseless, the knowledge of God impossible. Modern education has not dealt with these deeper questions of life and being. It has the future in which to prove its power of conducting a Cultus, answering to the discipline of the Greek thinkers, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle. As yet we deal with mind with far less certainty than with matter; the realm of intellect having been less explored than the world of the senses, and both are treated conjecturally rather than absolutely. When we come to perceive that Intuition is the primary postulate of all intelligence, most questions now perplexing and obscure will become transparent; the lower imperfect methods then take rank where they belong and are available. The soul leads the senses; the reason the understanding; imagination the memory; instinct and intuition include and prompt the Personality entire. The categories of imagination are the poet's tools; those of the reason, the implements of the naturalist. The dialectic philosopher is master of both. The tools to those only who can handle them skilfully. All others but gash themselves and their subject, at best. Ask not a man of understanding to solve a problem in metaphysics. He has neither wit, weights, nor scales for the task. But a man of reason or of imagination solves readily the problems of understanding the moment these are fairly stated. Ideas are solvents of all mysteries, whether in matter or mind. 'Tis clear Mind's sphere Is not here; The Ideal guest In ceaseless quest Pursues the Best: The very Better The while her fetter, Her desire Higher, still higher; Ever is fleeing Past Seeming to Being; Nor doth the sight content itself with seeing, As forms emerge they fast from sense are fleeing, Things but appear to vanish into Being. So the Greeks represented thought in their winged god, Hermes, as the father of speech and messenger of intelligence; they conceiving the visible world as a globe of forms, whereby objects of thought were pictured to sense, and held forth to fancy,—a geometry of ideas, a rhetoric of images. Sallying forth into nature, the mind clothes its ideas in fitting images, and thus reflects itself upon the understanding. Things are symbols of thoughts, and nature the mind's dictionary. Mind omnipresent is, All round about us lies, To fashion forth itself In thought and ecstacy, In fancy and surprise, Things with ideas fraught, And nature our dissolving thought.
GOETHE. Wednesday, 23. "As good Not write as not be understood." Yet the deepest truths are best read between the lines, and, for the most part, refuse to be written. Who tells all tells falsely. There are untold subtleties in things seen as unseen. Only the idealist touches the core of their secret tenderly, and extracts the mystery; Nature, like the coy Isis, disclosing these to none else. Most edifying is the author who suggests, and leaves to his reader the pleasure and profit of following his thought into its various relations with the whole of things, thus stimulating him to explore matters to their issues. The great masters have observed this fine law, and of modern scholars especially Goethe. For whether considered as poet or naturalist, he is our finest example of the reverent faith in nature and tenderness of treatment that becomes her student and devotees. And hence the rich spoils and prime suggestions with which he charms and rewards in his books. Wooed in this spirit, nature vouchsafed him the privilege of reading her secrets. An eye-witness of the facts, he had the magic pen to portray them as they rose midway between matter and mind, there caught them lovingly and held them forth in intertwisted myths and gay marriages to the sense and sentiment of his reader. Writing faithfully to the form of things, he yet had a finer moral than these could deliver; the vein of quiet mysticism in which he delighted, giving a graceful charm to the writing. How finely his senses symbolized his thought, and his eye how Olympian! What subtle perception of the contraries in character! He has treated the strife of the Worst for the Best, the problem of evil, more cunningly than any; than Moses; than the author of Job of Uz; than Milton, the Puritan, fitted as he was alike by birth and culture to deal with this world fable,—his faith in nature being so entire, his rare gifts at instant command for rendering perfect copies of what he saw, and loved to represent in its truthfulness to sense and soul alike. A seer of Spirit, the draughtsman of guile; to him sat the demons gladly, and he sketched their likenesses,—portraits of the dualities he knew so well; the same with which most are too familiar; the drama of the temptation being coeval with man, the catastrophe thus far repeated disastrously, the striving of the Many against the One, the world-spirit bribing the will, proffering the present delights for the future pains. Ah! could he but have found himself in the One, whom, with such surpassing skill he individualized, but failed to impersonate. His aloofness from life, his residence in the Many, his inability to identify himself with the whole of things,—this duplicity of genius denied him free admittance to unity. Cunning he was, not wise in the simplicity of wisdom. As the Fates conceived, so they slew him, yet by subtleties so siren, as to persuade him of an immortality not theirs to bestow. All he was, his Faust celebrates—admitted to heaven, as Goethe to glory, without the fee that opens honestly its gates. Oh, artist of beauty! Couldst thou but have been equal to portray the Spirit of spirits as cunningly as of Matter! But it was the temper of that age of transition, and thou wast its priest and poet. But whatever his deficiencies, he has been one of the world's teachers, and is to be for some time to come. The spirit and movement of an age are embodied in his books, and one reads with a growing reverence at every perusal of the mind that saw and has portrayed the world-spirit so well. If not the man complete that in our admiration of his genius we could desire, he yet was faithful to the law of his pen, and therewith justifies his existence to mankind. Nor do I find any of his contemporaries who made as much of this human life during his century. "Light, more light!" With this request he passed behind the clouds into the fullest radiance. CARLYLE. The ancients accepted in good faith the sway of Fate, or Temperament, in their doctrine of Destinies, hereby signifying that duplicity or polarity of forces operative in man's Will by which his personal freedom is abridged, if not overridden. Nor does it appear that they conceived deliverance possible from this dread Nemesis of existence; it was wrought into the substance of their tragedies, binding matter and mind alike in chains. If the modern thought professes to be freed from this Old Fatalism, it practically admits it, nevertheless; man's will being still bound in fetters by inexorable powers, which his Choice can neither propitiate nor overcome. If Goethe treats the matter more forcibly, sharply, his dealing differs but in form from the Pagan; man is the spoil of the demons still. Satan is suppressed for the moment to be victorious in the end. Carlyle only renders it the more inexorable and dismaying by all his wealth of thought, force of illustration, his formidable historical figures, dramatic genius. It is force pitted against force that he celebrates throughout his embattled pages; a victim himself with his heroes, yet like them never the victor; all irritants, but not quellers of the demon; fixed forces in transition times. Only seen from this, his habitual standpoint and outlook, is he justified as the consistent realist, holding fast his faith in the actual facts of the world, their rigorous following to the remotest issues,—the most heroic of thinkers. What if, with these dread convictions and insights of his, he paint out of all keeping with the actual facts; he is following logically his persuasions of the destinies that sway human concerns, abating not an iota of the letter of the text of the dread decalogue, whether for the wicked or the weak; defending his view of the right at all costs whatsoever. Justice first, mercy afterwards. His books opened anywhere show him berating the wrong he sees, but seldom the means of removing. There is ever the same melancholy advocacy of work to be done under the dread master: force of strokes, the right to rule and be ruled, the dismal burden. He rides his Leviathan as fiercely as did his countryman, Hobbes; can be as truculent and abusive. Were he not thus fatally in earnest, we should take him for the harlequin he often seems, not seeing the sorrowing sadness thus playing off its load in this grotesque mirth, this scornful irony of his; he painting in spite of himself his portraits in the warmth of admiration, the blaze of wrath, giving us mythology for history mostly. Yet with what breadth of perspective he paints these! strength of outline, the realism appalling, the egotism enormous,—all history showing in the background of his one figure, Carlyle,—Burns, Goethe, Richter, Mirabeau, Luther, Cromwell, Frederick,—all dashed from his flashing pen,—heads of himself alike in their unlikeness, prodigiously individual, wilful, some of them monstrous; all Englishmen, too, with their egregious prejudices, prides; no patience, no repose in any. He brandishes his truncheon through his pages with an adroitness that renders it unsafe for any, save the few wielding weapons of celestial temper, to do battle against Abaddon. Nor will he be silenced; talking terribly against all talking but his own; agreeing, disagreeing, all the same, he the Jove permitting none, none, to mount Olympus till the god deign silence and invite. Curious to see him monologizing, his chin aloft, the pent thunders rolling, lightnings darting from under his bold brows, words that tell of the wail within, accents not meant for music, yet made lyrical in the cadences of his Caledonian refrain, his mirth mad as Lear's, his humor wilful as the winds. Not himself then is approachable by himself even. A lovable man, nevertheless, with a great heart in his breast, sympathies the kindliest, deepest, nor indifferent to the ills the flesh is heir to. Why, oh ye powers, this wretchedness amidst the means superabounding for relieving and preventing it? Why this taking up reform forever from the beggar and felon side, as if these were sole credentials to sympathy, essential elements of the social state? Rather let force, persistent yet beneficent, be brought to bear upon mankind, giving alike to prince and people the dutiful drill that alone equips for the tasks of life,—this were the State's duty, the province of rulers; a thing to set about at once with the vigor of righteousness that justice demands for the rule of the world. The way of Imperialism this, and playing Providence harshly. He mistakes in commending absolutism to republicans, especially in times like ours. England, even, imperial as she is, is too intelligent and free to accept it. America certainly cannot. If he would but believe in the people, divide his faith in hero-worship with masses, also. But it is not easy for a Briton to comprehend properly republican institutions like ours. Nothing short of success against large odds can convince him of the feasibility, the safety of a popular government. "Success, success; to thee, to thee, As to a god, he bends the knee." Not one of his heroes would serve our turn. Frederick were perhaps a fit captain to dominate over a brute multitude; Cromwell might serve in a state of revolution, but must fail altogether at reconstruction. Even Milton, the republican, would hardly avail with republicans freed from the old British love of sway. It is not safe for any to dwell long on Sinai, leaving the multitudes meanwhile to their idolatries below. In rigors thus austere the humanities perish. Justice and mercy must alike conspire in the fulfilment of the decalogue, lest vengeance break the tables and shatter the divine image also. "When heaven would save a man, it encircles him with compassion."
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