66 fore it is that the arrogant will ridicule any extravagant confidence, and that moderate ones they who lack the perfervidum ingenium of our authoress-defer belief; and Mrs. C. must continue to pity, but, we entreat her, not reproach. Carlyle's sharp rebuke," which she quotes with big assurance, will not altogether uphold her. "Thou wilt have no mystery and mysticism? Wilt walk through the world by the sunshine of what thou callest logic? Thou wilt explain all, account for all, or believe nothing of it? Nay, thou wilt even attempt laughter?" As for mystery and mysticism, we are surely content that they should be, and that they who love them should live by them, and in them-allowing us the passing favor, that while they remain such, we may leave them alone; yea, even preferring, not "boldly," but modestly, "to walk through the world"i. e., to gain a reputable living, doing what good we may, by the sunshine of what we call logic, rather than the moonshine of what we both call mystery. And as for explaining-with God's help, we will explain what we can; and the much which we cannot explain-so far as it be essential to our living here or hereafterwe will take on what we call faith, and on what you call the inner light; and the much which is not essential we will leave to such as love it better than we. And as for laughter-if in their travails after a laying open of the remaining mysteries, their lovers be decoyed into situations ridiculous enough, yet which they are so delirious as not to see, or so self-willed as not to admit, be assured, we will not only attempt laughter, but laugh out courageously, leaving the world to decide (which they will claim to be a weak judge, but which, for want of other, must sit) which of us are the greater fools. The subject of spectral illusions, Mrs. C. makes the topic of some remark under the same letters, and adduces an instance or two. To say that there is something very wonderful and incomprehensible about these occurrences, and more especially the kindred and still more strange fact of the occasional fulfilment of dreams, is saying nearly all that can be said. The spectral illusion may indeed, in a measure, be accounted for, by supposing that under a morbid state of the system, a mental conception may be so intense as to leave the impression of real existence. (Observe, that by our very use of the term spectral illusion, we do not, with Mrs. C., admit, or seem to admit, that a spectre can be any thing else. There is strangeness enough, and unaccountableness enough, philosophically speaking, in an illusion so perfect, as to be taken by a soundminded man for actual existence.) The fulfilment of some dreams may be also in a measure accounted for, by supposing intense thought or anxiety in the individual's mind previous to the dream, and of a nature similar to the actual fulfilment. Thus, a man dreams, being away from home, that a mortgage upon his house will during his absence subject it to a ruinous sale; and he hurries home just in time to prevent the foreclosure. It were very reasonable to suppose in this case, that the mortgage, and the character of the holder, had been with him subject of great thought, and that an occasional absence had rendered him trebly anxious; the dream thus became the natural sequent of previous impressions, and its accidental fulfilment is noised about as an exception to their general issue. The minute concurrence of times in a dream, and its fulfilment, is indeed a matter which cannot be reasoned about; and a disbelief of them on that ground would be ridiculous, it is true; but equally ridicu lous would be belief in them without "evidence to the senses" that the dream and fulfilment were real. But we owe the reader a relief; and here he has it in one of the prettily told yet curious stories that lie profusely over these letters: herd in the service of a nobleman. From "M. Guzikow was a Polish Jew: a shepearliest childhood, music seemed to pervade his whole being. As he tended his flocks in the loneliness of the fields, he was forever fashioning flutes and reeds from the trees that grew around him. He soon ob. served that the tone of the flute varied according to the wood he used; by degrees he came to know every tree by its sound; and the forest stood round him a silent oratorio. The skill with which he played on his mystic flutes attracted attention. The nobility invited him to their houses, and he became a favorite of fortune. Men never grew weary of hearing him. But soon it was perceived that he was pouring forth the fountains of his life in song. Physicians said he must abjure the flute, or die. It was a dreadful sacrifice: for music to him was life. His old familiarity with tones of the forest came to his aid. He took four round sticks of wood, and bound them closely together with bands of straw; across these he arranged numerous pieces of round, smooth wood of different kinds. They were arranged irregularly to the eye, though harmoniously to the ear; for some jutted beyond the straw-bound foundation at one end, and some at the other, in and out, in apparent confusion. The whole was lashed together with twine, as men would fasten a raft. This was laid on a common table, and struck with two small ebony sticks. Rude as the instrument appeared, Guzikow brought from it such rich and liquid melody, that it seemed to take the heart of man on its wings, and bear it aloft to the throne of God. "He was heard by a friend of mine at Hamburg. The countenance of the musician was very pale and haggard, and his large dark eyes wildly expressive. He carried his head according to the custom of the Jews; but the small cap of black vel. vet was not to be distinguished in color from the jet black hair that fell from under it, and flowed over his shoulders in glossy natural ringlets. He wore the costume of his people-an ample robe, that fell about him in graceful folds. From head to feet all was black as his own hair and eyes, relieved only by the burning brilliancy of a diamond on his breast. Before this singularly gifted being stood a common wooden table, on which reposed his rude-looking invention. He touched it with the ebony sticks. At first you heard a sound as of wood: the orchestra rose higher and higher, till it drowned its voice; then gradually subsiding, the wonderful instrument rose above other sounds: clear, warbling, like a nightingale; the orchestra rose higher, like the coming of the breeze: but above them all swelled the sweet tones of the magic in strument, rich, liquid, and strong, like a skylark piercing the heavens!" (pp. 173-5.) Letter XXIX. contains an account of and reflections upon a visit to Blackwell's Island. It is a long one; it takes up and goes over all the writer's peculiar views relating to crime, and law, and society, yet again. It must have filled, at the least, three close-written sheets; and unless the correspondent to whom were addressed these favors, had more enthusiastic relish for these particular views than nine-tenths of the readers of the printed copy, it could hardly have been run over at one sitting. Society she makes appear the wilful parent of every wrong, and now adds, with some more show of justice, the charge of caprice in judging a wrong, equalled only by its malevolence in seducing to the wrong. "Every thing," says she, "in school 67 books, social remarks, domestic conversation, literature, public festivals, legislative proceedings, and popular honors, all teach the young soul that it is noble to retaliate, not to resent a wrong. Animal instincts, mean to forgive an insult, and unmanly instead of being brought into subjection to ished into more than natural activity. Of the higher powers of the soul, are thus cherthree men thus educated, one enters the army, kills a hundred Indians, hangs their scalps on a tree, is made major-general, and considered a fitting candidate for the presidency. The second goes to the southwest to reside; some 'roarer' calls him a rascal cessary to be resented; he agrees to settle -a phrase not misapplied, perhaps, but nethe question of honor at ten paces-shoots by society as a brave man. The third lives his insulter through the heart, and is hailed in New York; a man enters his office, and, fights, kills his adversary, is tried by the true or untrue, calls him a knave. He laws of the land, and is hung. These three the same motives, and illustrated the same men indulged the same passion, acted from education; yet how different their fate!" (pp. 190-1.) ther knowledge of these three very exNow, we venture to say, without furtraordinary brothers (which we fancy to be the enormous progeny of Mrs. C.'s extraordinary fancy) than she herself has afforded, that they acted from different motives, illustrated different educations-if, indeed, we may be guided by the simplest and safest possible deduction-and for aught that appears in the premises to the contrary, may have been as unlike as possible in passion. Thus, the major-general (we have known of and yet have hung the hundred scalps such) may have had no passion at all, upon a tree; and as for the motive, it may have been as destitute of passion as of patriotism, or (the thing is possible) as full of the one as of the other. The southwesterner may have had no passion; surely the motive was not passion, which motive; nor could it by any supposable in case of the third brother was the only construction have been the same with his, who directed the movements of an army. And as for education: the first may have had, for aught that appears, the best every way; the second may ucation which gives most perfect moral have had it, lacking only that moral edcourage; and the third must have lacked the best part of education-that which teaches subjection of the passions to reason. They may, it is true, have had the same, but we want "evidence to the senses" before we believe that they illustrate the same. And as to the recompense. Mrs. C. evidently means to direct our especial attention to the New Yorker, and have us feel that he ought not to have been punished. But society, in the cases supposed, may act unjustly only in that of the southwesterner. For the first man may have acted for the urgent necessities of his country, and have deserved her rewards; the second, under a lingering remnant of feudal sentiment, now abandoned by the greater part of christendom, receives honor, when he should be severely punished; the third merely gets his due. This is only other proof of the writer's want of discrimination; a want which-we must say it, for we like her writings-totally unfits her for any serious discussion in which her peculiar prejudices are awakened-we must say it earnestly, since others like her writings as well as ourselves. Prejudice was the word we used; and did it ever occur to Mrs. C., that there can be prejudice so anomalous as to favor new things, just as easily as those old ones, which here and there call out her poutings and sneers? And has it ever occurred to her that she is the actual subject of such prejudice in whatever relates to coercion on the part of law, or its ministers-any infringements upon the rights, absolute or relative, of every human being-any doing of violence to the genuine wishes of our natural hearts? It is a glorious failing-yet a womanly failing, and a real failing-that sympathy with the oppressed which warps reason to a justification of its claims-which would extend its power by sounding plaintively those notes to which every human heart is made to vibrate more or less distinctly. Take her appeal to the street woman, who complained of the delay to execute a public malefactor "Would she so desire were the criminal her son? She had forgotten," continues the paragraph, "that every criminal is somebody's son." A touching way to close a period; but what does it show? It may show that every criminal is to be pitied, but not at all what Mrs. C. manifestly feels-that he is not to be punished to the fulness of the law. Such appeals, which abound in the book, are, if we may use the expression, the fungal growth of an over-sensitive heart-just as some of her previous remarks proved to be the fungi of the brain. Mercy is indeed a beautiful attribute of justice; but, after all, one only among many. "It," says Sheridan, beautifully speaking of justice, "is in its loveliest attitude when bending to uplift the suppliant at its feet." But if always bending, no longer justice-no longer would it need to be either inquisitive or searching, vigilant or active, commanding or awful. There is this difference between love and duty that while duty to all, and duty to individuals may have perfect agreement, love to all may sometimes be at disagreement with particular love. Thus duty is higher than love. Does not the writer see that any or all of her sweetly extenuating voices of sympathy plead as strongly for a sufferer under Infinite punishment as under this temporal ? "Far from us," said Burke, with something of his usual extravagance, and a great deal of his usual good sense, "be that false, affected, hypocritical candor that is eternally in treaty with crime; that half-virtue, which, like the ambiguous animal that flies about in the twilight of a compromise between day and night, is to a just man's eye an odious and disgusting thing." Thus fretted that greatest of great men at the casual expressions of sympathy for the very questionable culprit, Warren Hastings. We are glad to afford our readers another relief-a couple of pages and more, which we transcribe from Letter XXX. with pleasure, and with fullest commendation. Surely we have a right to change our topic as violently-as these letters theirs. "There is a false necessity with which circle that never expands; whose iron never we industriously surround ourselves; a changes to ductile gold. This is the presence of public opinion: the intolerable restraint of conventional forms. Under this despotic influence, men and women check their best impulses, suppress their noblest feelings, conceal their highest thoughts. Each longs for full communion with other souls, but dares not give utterance to its yearnings. What hinders? The fear of what Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Clark will say; or the frown of some sect; or the anathema clique; or the laugh of some club; or the of some synod; or the fashion of some Oh, thou foolish soul! Thou art afraid of misrepresentation of some political party. thy neighbor, and knowest not that he is equally afraid of thee. He has bound thy hands, and thou hast fettered his feet. It were wise for both to snap the imaginary bonds, and walk onwards unshackled. If thy heart yearns for love, be loving; if thou wouldst free mankind, be free; if thou wouldst have a brother frank to thee, be frank to him. "But what will people say ? Why does it concern thee what they say? Thy life is not in their hands. They can give thee nothing of real value, nor take from thee any thing that is worth the having. Satan may promise thee all the kingdoms of the earth, but he has not an acre of it to give. He may offer much as the price of his worship, but there is a flaw in all his title-deeds. Eternal and sure is the promise, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' "But I shall be misunderstood, misrepresented. "And what if thou art? They who throw stones at what is above them, re ceive the missiles back again by the law of gravity; and lucky are they if they bruise not their own faces. Would that I could persuade all who read this to be truthful and free; to say what they think, and act what they feel; to cast from them, like ropes of sand, all fear of sects and parties, of clans and classes. "What is there of joyful freedom in our social intercourse? We meet to see each other; and not a peep do we get under the thick, stifling veil which each carrics about him. We visit to enjoy ourselves; and our host takes away all our freedom, while we destroy his own. If the host wishes to work or ride, he dare not lest it seem unpolite to the guest; if the guest wishes to read or sleep, he dare not lest it seem unpolite to the host; so they both remain slaves, and feel it a relief to part company. A few in. dividuals, mostly in foreign lands, arrange this matter with wiser freedom. If a visiter arrives, they say, 'I am busy to-day; but if you wish to ride, there are horse and sad. dle in the stable; if you wish to read, there are books in the parlor; if you want to work, the men are raking hay in the fields; if you want to romp, the children are at play in the court; if you want to talk to me, I can be with you at such an hour. Go where you please, and while you stay, do as you please.' "At some houses in Florence, large parties meet without invitation, and with the slightest preparation. It is understood that on some particular evening of the week, a lady or gentleman always receive their friends. In one room are books, and busts, and flowers; in another, pictures and engravings; in a third, music. Couples are ensconced in some shaded alcove, or groups dotted about the rooms, in mirthful or se rious conversation. No one is required to speak to his host, either entering or departing. Lemonade and baskets of fruit stand here and there on the side-tables, that all may take who like; but eating, which constitutes so large a part of all American entertainments, is a slight and almost unnoticed incident in these festivals of intellect and taste. Wouldst thou like to see such social freedom introduced here? Then do it. But the first step must be complete indifference to Mrs. Smith's assertion, that you were mean enough to offer only one kind of cake to your company, and to put less shortening in the under-crust of your pies than the upper. Let Mrs. Smith talk according to her gifts: be thou assured that all living souls love freedom better than cake, or under-crust."-(pp. 203-4-5.) This is good, so far as it goes: we wish that the writer, in place of her meek dissent and quiet ridicule, had employed every allusion that her memory would justify, and every figure of speech her rhetoric could command, to satirize the dogmas of fashionable life. In such work we would bid her, earnestly and in good faith, God-speed; adding thereto, whatever of mockery our feeble language could promote, to throw the foulest odium on those puppets of their own fashion, who prescribe modes and orders for social intercourse. Any severity of remark, any bitterness of ridicule, would be mild weapons wherewith to controvert that growing spirit of stupid formalism which prevails through all the ranks of city life-from the silver bell-pulls of Head in Barclay-street. Nor is the evil Leroy Place, or St. John's, to the Nag's only metropolitan :-the infection reaches to every town in the country that can boast its Mayor, or its Mayor's lady. And, incredible as it may seem, the distinctions in society-which in a measure spring out of city habits, but are yet ordered and modified by the controlling voices of wealth and fashion-are carried, with all the petty modifications they engender, to embitter the freedom and naturalness of country life. Self-possession, ease, and quietness-always the truest tests of good-breeding--can have no place where all is studied constraint. Refinement and intellectual cultivation are utterly inappreciable by those who gloat at the absurd inanities which distinguish prevailing social usage. Does the reader remember how, in the tale of Woodstock, Sir Henry Lee chafes and fumes at the impertinence and noisy merriment of the page Louis Kernegay, until he finds that the blood of royalty flows in his veins, when in an instant, petulance is succeeded by submission and reverence? Proper familiarity with the forced conventionalities of social life, will, like the blood-royal, carry impudence anywhere, and confront innocence with sensuality, grosser even than that of the Scotch page. Under such disposition of things, polite conversation has become the merest stolidity; no naturalness, no freedom, no heartiness of expression. Where would Charles Lamb find now the type for his Rosamond?"one whose remarks should be suggested most of them by the passing scene, and betray all of them the liveliness of present impulse; whose conversation should not consist in a comparison of vapid feeling, an interchange of sentiment lip-deep-but have all the freshness of young sensation in it." Here is no extravagance, yet how unreal! Not only is there lack of that freeness, which is the subject of the present writer's regret-but also of a fulness, that joined to freedom of thought and of expression, upon any topic suggested, would always give the happiest and healthiest kind of animation to a properly constituted social circle. But where are now the contributing forces to that excitement which keeps alive the general forms of social intercourse? Do they lie within the province of reason, or anywhere upon the broad ground of what Mrs. C. would call, in her exaggerated way-Universal Love? How utterly the reality falsifies either supposition! We seriously believe that they have their origin in the worst kinds of selfish pride, and ignorant vanity. Another suggestion occurs to us, in view of the present state of polite society. Its whole tendency is to wean away from the quiet and the charms-as they once were of the domestic circle. For the forms and vulgar ceremonies of the one, are wholly foreign to the freedom and conviviality of the other. A taste for the one will insensibly breed a distaste for the other. Not a woman, nor man either, can put away their habit of thought, and expression, and action, as they would a garment. Hence, the charm that lay in the fireside circle is gone;-that promoter of virtue-that restorer of broken spirits-that procurer of heart-felt contentedness-is gone. Not a hundredth part can the bewildering excitements of what we call society supply the earnest and hearty joys that used to gather round the hearth stone at evening. Who, that is reading this, has been so barbarously taught from childhood, as not to have somewhere in his memory-a little corner-a nook— filled with some such image as is now present to our mind,-of crackling flames of youngsters busy with old Dr. Aikin and Mrs. Barbauld-of girls, not grown too old for some such story as that of the Skotcher Boy or Lazy Lawrence-or, hearkening intently to the tale of some neighbor grandam, or to the mother as she runs softly through some of Crabbe's silver melody, or, possibly, to the father, lifting up his voice to some of Milton's organ-music, or the glorious, great things of history? We think, then, there is needed, in view of the social reforın our authoress proposes, primal attention in the sphere we have designated-need of the independence she suggests; an independent love of home; an independent appreciation of its privileges; an independent love of its quietude; an independent contempt for those excitements and follies which destroy its best influences, and canker all its joys. We have not done with this subject yet. The refinement which the prevailing systems of polite education demand, has no sort of relation to the social qualities of the heart or mind; it has not even any connection with the duties of private companionship, or the enlivenment of domestic scenes; but its whole meaning, and nature, and ends, as currently understood, centre in publicity. Refinement is opposed to vulgarity, and vulgarity is understood to mean only non-compliance with those forms of speech, or dress, or action, which existing fashion has brought into vogue, and which the next change may carry out. Immorality has no part in the making up of what is called, in the polite circles, vulgarity. So, too, highest natural endowment, and elegant cultivation of the mental perceptions, have little to do with the popular meaning of refinement. Hence, the education of females especially-for with them rests the control of the social usages we are considering is modulated to a compliance with those established public forms and ceremonies-called, when the compliance is nice, and, as it were, insensible, refinement-which refinement, or which education, for the one is the other, has no foundation in any truthful sentiment of the mind, or any natural love of the |
