Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems.
perhaps the emblematic carbuncle.
The flower is pressed to the bosom with intense emotion, but in the home
of love it withers and is cast away.
The gem is worn with less love, but with more pride; if we enjoy its
sparkle, the joy is partly from calculation of its value; but if it be
lost, we regret it long.
For myself, my name is Pearl.[42] That lies at the beginning, amid slime
and foul prodigies from which only its unsightly shell protects. It is
cradled and brought to its noblest state amid disease and decay. Only
the experienced diver could have known that it was there, and brought it
to the strand, where it is valued as pure, round, and, if less brilliant
than the diamond, yet an ornament for a kingly head. Were it again
immersed in the element where first it dwelt, now that it is stripped of
the protecting shell, soon would it blacken into deformity. So what is
noblest in my soul has sprung from disease, present defeat,
disappointment, and untoward outward circumstance.
For you, I presume, from your want of steady light and brilliancy of
sparks which are occasionally struck from you, that you are either a
flint or a rough diamond. If the former, I hope you will find a home in
some friendly tinder-box, instead of lying in the highway to answer the
hasty hoof of the trampling steed. If a diamond, I hope to meet you in
some imperishable crown, where we may long remain together; you lighting
up my pallid orb, I tempering your blaze.
_Dried Ferns about my Lamp-shade._--"What pleasure do you, who have
exiled those paper tissue covers, take in that bouquet of dried ferns?
Their colors are less bright, and their shapes less graceful, than those
of your shades."
I answer, "They grew beneath the solemn pines. They opened their hearts
to the smile of summer, and answered to the sigh of autumn. _They_
remind me of the wealth of nature; the tissues, of the poverty of man.
They were gathered by a cherished friend who worships in the woods, and
behind them lurks a deep, enthusiastic eye. So my pleasure in seeing
them is 'denkende' and 'menschliche.'"
"They are of no use."
"Good! I like useless things: they are to me the vouchers of a different
state of existence."
* * * * *
_Light._--My lamp says to me, "Why do you disdain me, and use that
candle, which you have the trouble of snuffing every five minutes, and
which ever again grows dim, ungrateful for your care? I would burn
steadily from sunset to midnight, and be your faithful, vigilant friend,
yet never interrupt you an instant."
I reply, "But your steady light is also dull,--while his, at its best,
is both brilliant and mellow. Besides, I love him for the trouble he
gives; he calls on my sympathy, and admonishes me constantly to use my
life, which likewise flickers as if near the socket."
* * * * *
_Wit and Satire._--I cannot endure people who do not distinguish between
wit and satire; who think you, of course, laugh at people when you laugh
_about_ them; and who have no perception of the peculiar pleasure
derived from toying with lovely or tragic figures.
FAREWELL.[43]
Farewell to New York city, where twenty months have presented me with a
richer and more varied exercise for thought and life, than twenty years
could in any other part of these United States.
It is the common remark about New York, that it has at least nothing
petty or provincial in its methods and habits. The place is large
enough: there is room enough, and occupation enough, for men to have no
need or excuse for small cavils or scrutinies. A person who is
independent, and knows what he wants, may lead his proper life here,
unimpeded by others.
Vice and crime, if flagrant and frequent, are less thickly coated by
hypocrisy than elsewhere. The air comes sometimes to the most infected
subjects.
New York is the focus, the point where American and European interests
converge. There is no topic of general interest to men, that will not
betimes be brought before the thinker by the quick turning of the wheel.
_Too_ quick that revolution,--some object. Life rushes wide and free,
but _too fast_. Yet it is in the power of every one to avert from
himself the evil that accompanies the good. He must build for his study,
as did the German poet, a house beneath the bridge; and then all that
passes above and by him will be heard and seen, but he will not be
carried away with it.
Earlier views have been confirmed, and many new ones opened. On two
great leadings, the superlative importance of promoting national
education by heightening and deepening the cultivation of individual
minds, and the part which is assigned to woman in the next stage of
human progress in this country, where most important achievements are to
be effected, I have received much encouragement, much instruction, and
the fairest hopes of more.
On various subjects of minor importance, no less than these, I hope for
good results, from observation, with my own eyes, of life in the old
world, and to bring home some packages of seed for life in the new.
These words I address to my friends, for I feel that I have some. The
degree of sympathetic response to the thoughts and suggestions I have
offered through the columns of the Tribune, has indeed surprised me,
conscious as I am of a natural and acquired aloofness from many, if not
most popular tendencies of my time and place. It has greatly encouraged
me, for none can sympathize with thoughts like mine, who are permanently
insnared in the meshes of sect or party; none who prefer the formation
and advancement of mere opinions to the free pursuit of truth. I see,
surely, that the topmost bubble or sparkle of the cup is no voucher for
the nature of its contents throughout, and shall, in future, feel that
in our age, nobler in that respect than most of the preceding ages, each
sincere and fervent act or word is secure, not only of a final, but of a
speedy response.
I go to behold the wonders of art, and the temples of old religion. But
I shall see no forms of beauty and majesty beyond what my country is
capable of producing in myriad variety, if she has but the soul to will
it; no temple to compare with what she might erect in the ages, if the
catchword of the time, a sense of _divine order_, should become no more
a mere word of form, but a deeply-rooted and pregnant idea in her life.
Beneath the light of a hope that this may be, I say to my friends once
more a kind farewell!
PART III.
POEMS.
FREEDOM AND TRUTH.
TO A FRIEND.
The shrine is vowed to freedom, but, my friend,
Freedom is but a means to gain an end.
Freedom should build the temple, but the shrine
Be consecrate to thought still more divine.
The human bliss which angel hopes foresaw
Is liberty to comprehend the law.
Give, then, thy book a larger scope and frame,
Comprising means and end in Truth's great name.
DESCRIPTION OF A PORTION OF THE JOURNEY TO TRENTON FALLS.
The long-anticipated morning dawns,
Clear, hopeful, joyous-eyed, and pure of breath.
The dogstar is exhausted of its rage,
And copious showers have cooled the feverish air,
The mighty engine pants--away, away!
And, see! they come! a motley, smiling group--
The stately matron with her tempered grace,
Her earnest eye, and kind though meaning smile,
Her words of wisdom and her words of mirth.
Her counsel firm and generous sympathy;
The happy pair whose hearts so full, yet ever
Dilating to the scene, refuse that bliss
Which excludes the whole or blunts the sense of beauty.
Next two fair maidens in gradation meet,
The one of gentle mien and soft dove-eyes;
Like water she, that yielding and combining,
Yet most pure element in the social cup:
The other with bright glance and damask cheek,
You need not deem concealment there was preying
To mar the healthful promise of the spring.
Another dame was there, of graver look,
And heart of slower beat; yet in its depths
Not irresponsive to the soul of things,
Nor cold when charmed by those who knew its pass-word.
These ladies had a knight from foreign clime,
Who from the banks of the dark-rolling Danube,
Or somewhere thereabouts, had come, a pilgrim,
To worship at the shrine of Liberty,
And after, made his home in her loved realm,
Content to call it fatherland where'er
The streams bear freemen and the skies smile on them;
A courteous knight he was, of merry mood,
Expert to wing the lagging hour with jest,
Or tale of strange romance or comic song.
And there was one I must not call a page,
Although too young yet to have won his spurs;
Yet there was promise in his laughing eye,
That in due time he'd prove no carpet knight;
Now, bright companion on a summer sea,
With winged words of gay or tasteful thought,
He was fit clasp to this our social chain.
And now, the swift car loosened on its way,
O'er hill and dale we fly with rapid lightness,
While each tongue celebrates the power of steam;
O, how delightful 'tis to go so fast!
No time to muse, no chance to gaze on nature!
'Tis bliss indeed if "to think be to groan!"
The genius of the time soon shifts the scene:
No longer whirled over our kindred clods,
We, with as strong an impulse, cleave the waters.
Now doth our chain a while untwine its links,
And some rebound from a three hours' communion
To mingle with less favored fellow-men;
One careless turns the leaves of some new volume;
The leaves of Nature's book are too gigantic,
Too vast the characters for patient study,
Till sunset lures us with majestic power
To cast one look of love on that bright eye,
Which, for so many hours, has beamed on us.
The silver lamp is lit in the blue dome,
Nature begins her hymn of evening breezes,
And myriad sparks, thronging to kiss the wave,
Touch even the steamboat's clumsy hulk with beauty.
Then, once more drawn together, cheerful talk
Casts to the hours a store of gentle gifts,
Which memory receives from these bright minds
And careful garners them for duller days.
The morning greets us not with her late smile;
Now chilling damp falls heavy on our hopes,
And leaden hues tarnish each sighed-for scene.
Yet not on coloring, majestic Hudson,
Depends the genius of thy stream, whose wand
Has piled thy banks on high, and given them forms
Which have for taste an impulse yet unknown.
Though Beauty dwells here, she reigns not a queen,
An humble handmaid now to the Sublime.
The mind dilates to receive the idea of strength,
And tasks its elements for congenial forms
To create anew within those mighty piles,
Those "bulwarks of the world," which, time-defying
And thunder-mocking, lift their lofty brows.
Now at the river's bend we pause a while,
And sun and cloud combine their wealth to greet us.
Oft shall the fair scenes of West Point return
Upon the mind, in its still picture-hours,
Its cloud-capped mountains with their varying hues,
The soft seclusion of its wooded paths,
And the alluring hopefulness of view
Along the river from its crisis-point.
Unlike the currents of our human lives
When they approach their long-sought ocean-mother,--
This stream is noblest onward to its close,
More tame and grave when near its inland founts.
Now onward, onward, till the whole be known;
The heart, though swollen with these new sensations,
With no less vital throb beats on for more,