Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems.
secretly in the heart for the ill we could not deny. We have observed
two deaths; one of the sinner, early cut down; one of the just, full of
years and honor--_both_ were calm; both professed their reliance on the
wisdom of a heavenly Father. We have looked upon the beauteous shows of
nature in undisturbed succession, holy moonlight on the snows, loving
moonlight on the summer fields, the stars which disappoint never and
bless ever, the flowing waters which soothe and stimulate, a garden of
roses calling for queens among women, poets and heroes among men. We
have marked a desire to answer to this call, and genius brought rich
wine, but spilt it on the way, from her careless, fickle gait; and
virtue tainted with a touch of the peacock; and philosophy, never
enjoying, always seeking, had got together all the materials for the
crowning experiment, but there was no love to kindle the fire under the
furnace, and the precious secret is not precipitated yet, for the pot
will not boil to make the gold through your
"Double, double,
Toil and trouble,"
if love do not fan the fire.
We have seen the decay of friendships unable to endure the light of an
ideal hope--have seen, too, their resurrection in a faith and hope
beyond the tomb, where the form lies we once so fondly cherished. It is
not dead, but sleepeth; and we watch, but must weep, too, sometimes, for
the night is cold and lonely in the place of tombs.
Nature has appeared dressed in her veil of snowy flowers for the bridal.
We have seen her brooding over her joys, a young mother in the pride and
fulness of beauty, and then bearing her offspring to their richly
ornamented sepulchre, and lately observed her as if kneeling with folded
hands in the stillness of prayer, while the bare trees and frozen
streams bore witness to her patience.
O, much, much have we seen, and a little learned. Such is the record of
the private mind; and yet, as the bright snake-skin is cast, many sigh
and cry,--
"The wiser mind
Mourns less for what Time takes away
Than what he leaves behind."
But for ourselves, we find there is kernel in the nut, though its
ripening be deferred till the late frosty weather, and it prove a hard
nut to crack even then. Looking at the individual, we see a degree of
growth, or the promise of such. In the child there is a force which will
outlast the wreck, and reach at last the promised shore. The good man,
once roused from his moral lethargy, shall make atonement for his fault,
and endure a penance that will deepen and purify his whole nature. The
poor lost ones claim a new trial in a new life, and will there, we
trust, seize firmer hold on the good for the experience they have had of
the bad.
"We never see the stars
Till we can see nought else."
The seeming losses are, in truth, but as pruning of the vine to make the
grapes swell more richly.
But how is it with those larger individuals, the nations, and that
congress of such, the world? We must take a broad and superficial view
of these, as we have of private life; and in neither case can more be
done. The secrets of the confessional, or rather of the shrine, do not
come on paper, unless in poetic form.
So we will not try to search and mine, but only to look over the world
from an ideal point of view.
Here we find the same phenomena repeated; the good nation is yet somehow
so sick at heart that you are not sure its goodness will ever produce a
harmony of life; over the young nation, (our own,) rich in energy and
full of glee, brood terrible omens; others, as Poland and Italy, seem
irrecoverably lost. They may revive, but we feel as if it must be under
new forms.
Forms come and go, but principles are developed and displayed more and
more. The caldron simmers, and so great is the fire that we expect it
soon to boil over, and new fates appear for Europe.
Spain is dying by inches; England shows symptoms of having passed her
meridian; Austria has taken opium, but she must awake ere long; France
is in an uneasy dream--she knows she has been very sick, has had
terrible remedies administered, and ought to be getting thoroughly well,
which she is not. Louis Philippe watches by her pillow, doses and
bleeds her, so that she cannot fairly try her strength, and find whether
something or nothing has been done. But Louis Philippe and Metternich
must soon, in the course of nature, leave this scene; and then there
will be none to keep out air and light from the chamber, and the
patients will be roused and ascertain their true condition.
No power is in the ascending course except the Russian; and that has
such a condensation of brute force, animated by despotic will, that it
seems sometimes as if it might by and by stride over Europe and face us
across the water. Then would be opposed to one another the two extremes
of Autocracy and Democracy, and a trial of strength would ensue between
the two principles more grand and full than any ever seen on this
planet, and of which the result must be to bind mankind by one chain of
convictions. Should, indeed, Despotism and Democracy meet as the two
slaveholding powers of the world, the result can hardly be predicted.
But there is room in the intervening age for many changes, and the czars
profess to wish to free their serfs, as our planters do to free their
slaves, and we suppose with equal sincerity; but the need of sometimes
professing such desires is a deference to the progress of principles
which bid fair to have their era yet.
We hope such an era steadfastly, notwithstanding the deeds of darkness
that have made this year forever memorable in our annals. Our nation has
indeed shown that the lust of gain is at present her ruling passion. She
is not only resolute, but shameless, about it, and has no doubt or
scruple as to laying aside the glorious office, assigned her by fate, of
herald of freedom, light, and peace to the civilized world.
Yet we must not despair. Even so the Jewish king, crowned with all gifts
that Heaven could bestow, was intoxicated by their plenitude, and went
astray after the most worthless idols. But he was not permitted to
forfeit finally the position designed for him: he was drawn or dragged
back to it; and so shall it be with this nation. There are trials in
store which shall amend us.
We must believe that the pure blood shown in the time of our revolution
still glows in the heart; but the body of our nation is full of foreign
elements. A large proportion of our citizens, or their parents, came
here for worldly advantage, and have never raised their minds to any
idea of destiny or duty. More money--more land! are all the watchwords
they know. They have received the inheritance earned by the fathers of
the revolution, without their wisdom and virtue to use it. But this
cannot last. The vision of those prophetic souls must be realized, else
the nation could not exist; every body must at least "have soul enough
to save the expense of salt," or it cannot be preserved alive.
What a year it has been with us! Texas annexed, and more annexations in
store; slavery perpetuated, as the most striking new feature of these
movements. Such are the fruits of American love of liberty! Mormons
murdered and driven out, as an expression of American freedom of
conscience; Cassius Clay's paper expelled from Kentucky; that is
American freedom of the press. And all these deeds defended on the true
Russian grounds, "We (the stronger) know what you (the weaker) ought to
do and be, and it _shall_ be so."
Thus the principles which it was supposed, some ten years back, had
begun to regenerate the world, are left without a trophy for this past
year, except in the spread of Ronge's movement in Germany, and that of
associative and communist principles both here and in Europe, which, let
the worldling deem as he will about their practicability, he cannot deny
to be animated by faith in God and a desire for the good of man. We must
add to these the important symptoms of the spread of peace principles.
Meanwhile, if the more valuable springs of action seem to lie dormant
for a time, there is a constant invention and perfection of the means of
action and communication which seems to say, "Do but wait patiently;
there is something of universal importance to be done by and by, and all
is preparing for it to be universally known and used at once." Else what
avail magnetic telegraphs, steamers, and rail-cars traversing every rood
of land and ocean, phonography and the mingling of all literatures, till
North embraces South and Denmark lays her head upon the lap of Italy?
Surely there would not be all this pomp of preparation as to the means
of communion, unless there were like to be something worthy to be
communicated.
Amid the signs of the breaking down of barriers, we may mention the
Emperor Nicholas letting his daughter pass from the Greek to the Roman
church, for the sake of marrying her to the Austrian prince. Again,
similarity between him and us: he, too, is shameless; for while he signs
this marriage contract with one hand, he holds the knout in the other to
drive the Roman Catholic Poles into the Greek church. But it is a fatal
sign for his empire. 'Tis but the first step that costs, and the
Russians may look back to the marriage of the Grand Duchess Olga, as the
Chinese will to the cannonading of the English, as the first sign of
dissolution in the present form of national life.
A similar token is given by the violation of etiquette of which Mr. Polk
is accused in his message. He, at the head of a government, speaks of
governments and their doings straightforward, as he would of persons,
and the tower, stronghold of the idea of a former age, now propped up by
etiquettes and civilities only, trembles to its foundation.
Another sign of the times is the general panic which the decay of the
potato causes. We believe this is not without a providential meaning,
and will call attention still more to the wants of the people at large.
New and more provident regulations must be brought out, that they may
not again be left with only a potato between them and starvation. By
another of these whimsical coincidences between the histories of
Aristocracy and Democracy, the supply of _truffles_ is also failing.
The land is losing the "nice things" that the queen (truly a young
queen) thought might be eaten in place of bread. Does not this indicate
a period in which it will be felt that there must be provision for
all--the rich shall not have their truffles if the poor are driven to
eat nettles, as the French and Irish have in bygone ages?
The poem of which we here give a prose translation lately appeared in
Germany. It is written by Moritz Hartmann, and contains the _gist_ of
the matter.
MISTRESS POTATO.
There was a great stately house full of people, who have been running in
and out of its lofty gates ever since the gray times of Olympus. There
they wept, laughed, shouted, mourned, and, like day and night, came the
usual changes of joys with plagues and sorrows. Haunting that great
house up and down, making, baking, and roasting, covering and waiting on
the table, has there lived a vast number of years a loyal serving maid
of the olden time--her name was Mrs. Potato. She was a still, little,
old mother, who wore no bawbles or laces, but always had to be satisfied
with her plain, every-day clothes; and unheeded, unhonored, oftentimes
jeered at and forgotten, she served all day at the kitchen fire, and
slept at night in the worst room. When she brought the dishes to table
she got rarely a thankful glance; only at times some very poor man would
in secret shake kindly her hand.
Generation after generation passed by, as the trees blossom, bear fruit,