Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems.
if we will but think so. For the mentally or morally insane, there is no
irreparable ill if the principle of life can but be aroused. And it can
never be finally benumbed, except by our own will.
One of the famous pictures at Munich is of a madhouse. The painter has
represented the moral obliquities of society exaggerated into madness;
that is to say, self-indulgence has, in each instance, destroyed the
power to forbear the ill or to discern the good. A celebrated writer has
added a little book, to be used while looking at the picture, and drawn
inferences of universal interest.
Such would we draw; such as this! Let no one dare to call another mad
who is not himself willing to rank in the same class for every
perversion and fault of judgment. Let no one dare aid in punishing
another as criminal who is not willing to suffer the penalty due to his
own offences.
Yet, while owning that we are all mad, all criminal, let us not despair,
but rather believe that the Ruler of all never could permit such
wide-spread ill but to good ends. It is permitted to give us a field to
redeem it--
"to transmute, bereave
Of an ill influence, and a good receive."
It flows inevitably from the emancipation of our wills, the development
of individuality in us. These aims accomplished, all shall yet be well;
and it is ours to learn _how_ that good time may be hastened.
We know no sign of the times more encouraging than the increasing
nobleness and wisdom of view as to the government of asylums for the
insane and of prisons. Whatever is learned as to these forms of society
is learned for all. There is nothing that can be said of such government
that must not be said, also, of the government of families, schools, and
states. But we have much to say on this subject, and shall revert to it
again, and often, though, perhaps, not with so pleasing a theme as this
of St. Valentine's Eve.
FOURTH OF JULY.
The bells ring; the cannon rouse the echoes along the river shore; the
boys sally forth with shouts and little flags, and crackers enough to
frighten all the people they meet from sunrise to sunset. The orator is
conning for the last time the speech in which he has vainly attempted to
season with some new spice the yearly panegyric upon our country; its
happiness and glory; the audience is putting on its best bib and tucker,
and its blandest expression to listen.
And yet, no heart, we think, can beat to-day with one pulse of genuine,
noble joy. Those who have obtained their selfish objects will not take
especial pleasure in thinking of them to-day, while to unbiassed minds
must come sad thoughts of national honor soiled in the eyes of other
nations, of a great inheritance risked, if not forfeited.
Much has been achieved in this country since the Declaration of
Independence. America is rich and strong; she has shown great talent and
energy; vast prospects of aggrandizement open before her. But the noble
sentiment which she expressed in her early youth is tarnished; she has
shown that righteousness is not her chief desire, and her name is no
longer a watchword for the highest hopes to the rest of the world. She
knows this, but takes it very easily; she feels that she is growing
richer and more powerful, and that seems to suffice her.
These facts are deeply saddening to those who can pronounce the words
"my country" with pride and peace only so far as steadfast virtues,
generous impulses, find their home in that country. They cannot be
satisfied with superficial benefits, with luxuries and the means of
obtaining knowledge which are multiplied for them. They could rejoice in
full hands and a busy brain, if the soul were expanding and the heart
pure; but, the higher conditions being violated, what is done cannot be
done for good.
Such thoughts fill patriot minds as the cannon-peal bursts upon the ear.
This year, which declares that the people at large consent to cherish
and extend slavery as one of our "domestic institutions," takes from the
patriot his home. This year, which attests their insatiate love of
wealth and power, quenches the flame upon the altar.
Yet there remains that good part which cannot be taken away. If nations
go astray, the narrow path may always be found and followed by the
individual man. It is hard, hard indeed, when politics and trade are
mixed up with evils so mighty that he scarcely dares touch them for fear
of being defiled. He finds his activity checked in great natural outlets
by the scruples of conscience. He cannot enjoy the free use of his
limbs, glowing upon a favorable tide; but struggling, panting, must fix
his eyes upon his aim, and fight against the current to reach it. It is
not easy, it is very hard just now, to realize the blessings of
independence.
For what _is_ independence if it do not lead to freedom?--freedom from
fraud and meanness, from selfishness, from public opinion so far as it
does not agree with the still, small voice of one's better self?
Yet there remains a great and worthy part to play. This country presents
great temptations to ill, but also great inducements to good. Her health
and strength are so remarkable, her youth so full of life, that disease
cannot yet have taken deep hold of her. It has bewildered her brain,
made her steps totter, fevered, but not yet tainted, her blood. Things
are still in that state when ten just men may save the city. A few men
are wanted, able to think and act upon principles of an eternal value.
The safety of the country must lie in a few such men; men who have
achieved the genuine independence, independence of wrong, of violence,
of falsehood.
We want individuals to whom all eyes may turn as examples of the
practicability of virtue. We want shining examples. We want
deeply-rooted characters, who cannot be moved by flattery, by fear, even
by hope, for they work in faith. The opportunity for such men is great;
they will not be burned at the stake in their prime for bearing witness
to the truth, yet they will be tested most severely in their adherence
to it. There is nothing to hinder them from learning what is true and
best; no physical tortures will be inflicted on them for expressing it.
Let men feel that in private lives, more than in public measures, must
the salvation of the country lie. If that country has so widely veered
from the course she prescribed to herself, and that the hope of the
world prescribed to her, it must be because she had not men ripened and
confirmed for better things. They leaned too carelessly on one another;
they had not deepened and purified the private lives from which the
public vitality must spring, as the verdure of the plain from the
fountains of the hills.
What a vast influence is given by sincerity alone. The bier of General
Jackson has lately passed, upbearing a golden urn. The men who placed it
there lament his departure, and esteem the measures which have led this
country to her present position wise and good. The other side esteem
them unwise, unjust, and disastrous in their consequences. But both
respect him thus far, that his conduct was boldly sincere. The sage of
Quincy! Men differ in their estimate of his abilities. None, probably,
esteem his mind as one of the first magnitude. But both sides, all men,
are influenced by the bold integrity of his character. Mr. Calhoun
speaks straight out what he thinks. So far as this straightforwardness
goes, he confers the benefits of virtue. If a character be uncorrupted,
whatever bias it takes, it thus far is good and does good. It may help
others to a higher, wiser, larger independence than its own.
We know not where to look for an example of all or many of the virtues
we would seek from the man who is to begin the new dynasty that is
needed of fathers of the country. The country needs to be born again;
she is polluted with the lust of power, the lust of gain. She needs
fathers good enough to be godfathers--men who will stand sponsors at the
baptism with _all_ they possess, with all the goodness they can cherish,
and all the wisdom they can win, to lead this child the way she should
go, and never one step in another. Are there not in schools and colleges
the boys who will become such men? Are there not those on the threshold
of manhood who have not yet chosen the broad way into which the
multitude rushes, led by the banner on which, strange to say, the royal
Eagle is blazoned, together with the word Expediency? Let them decline
that road, and take the narrow, thorny path where Integrity leads,
though with no prouder emblem than the Dove. They may there find the
needed remedy, which, like the white root, detected by the patient and
resolved Odysseus, shall have power to restore the herd of men,
disguised by the enchantress to whom they had willingly yielded in the
forms of brutes, to the stature and beauty of men.
FIRST OF AUGUST.
Among the holidays of the year, some portion of our people borrow one
from another land. They borrow what they fain would own, since their
doing so would increase, not lessen, the joy and prosperity of the
present owner. It is a holiday not to be celebrated, as others are, with
boast, and shout, and gay procession, but solemnly, yet hopefully; in
prayer and humiliation for much ill now existing; in faith that the God
of good will not permit such ill to exist always; in aspiration to
become his instruments for removal.
We borrow this holiday from England. We know not that she could lend us
another such. Her career has been one of selfish aggrandizement. To
carry her flag wherever the waters flow; to leave a strong mark of her
footprint on every shore, that she might return and claim its spoils; to
maintain in every way her own advantage,--is and has been her object, as
much as that of any nation upon earth. The plundered Hindoo, the wronged
Irish,--for ourselves we must add the outraged Chinese, (for we look on
all that has been written about the right of that war as mere
sophistry,)--no less than Napoleon, walking up and down, in his "tarred
great-coat," in the unwholesome lodge at St. Helena,--all can tell
whether she be righteous or generous in her conquests. Nay, let myriads
of her own children say whether she will abstain from sacrificing,
mercilessly, human freedom, happiness, and the education of immortal
souls, for the sake of gains of money! We speak of Napoleon, for we
must ever despise, with most profound contempt, the use she made of her
power on that occasion. She had been the chief means of liberating
Europe from his tyranny, and, though it was for her own sake, we must
commend and admire her conduct and resolution thus far. But the
unhandsome, base treatment of her captive, has never been enough
contemned. Any private gentleman, in chaining up the foe that had put
himself in his power, would at least have given him lodging, food, and
clothes to his liking; and a civil turnkey--and a great nation could
fail in this! O, it was shameful, if only for the vulgarity of feeling
evinced! All this we say, because we are sometimes impatient of
England's brag on the subject of slavery. Freedom! Because she has done
one good act, is she entitled to the angelic privilege of being the
champion of freedom?
And yet it is true that once she nobly awoke to a sense of what was
right and wise. It is true that she also acted out that sense--acted
fully, decidedly. She was willing to make sacrifices, even of the loved
money. She has not let go the truth she then laid to heart, and
continues the resolute foe of man's traffic in men. We must bend low to
her as we borrow this holiday--the anniversary of the emancipation of
slaves in the West Indies. We do not feel that the extent of her
practice justifies the extent of her preaching; yet we must feel her to