Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.

VOL. III.--APRIL, 1863.--No. IV.

THE WONDERS OF WORDS.

Every nation has its legend of a 'golden age'--when all was young and fresh and fair--'_comme les couleurs primitives de la nature_'--even before the existence of this gaunt shadow of Sorrow--_the shadow of ourselves_--that ever stalks in company with us;--an epoch of Saturnian rule, when gods held sweet converse with men, and man primeval bounded with all the elasticity of god-given juvenility:

('Ah! remember,
This--all this--was in the olden
Time long ago.')

And even now, in spite of our atheism and our apathism, amid all the overwhelming world-influences of this great 'living Present'--the ghost of the dead Past will come rushing back upon us with its solemn voices and its infinite wailings of pity: but soft and faint it comes; for the wild jarrings of the Now almost prevent us from hearing its still, small voices. It

'Is but a _dim-remembered_ story
Of the old time entombed.'

Besides, what is History but the story of the bygone? The elegy, too, comes to us as the last lamenting, sadly solemn swan-song of that glorious golden time. And, indeed, are not all poesies but various notes of that mighty diapason of Thought and Feeling, that has, through the ages, been singing itself in jubilee and wail?

So it is in the individual--(for is not the individual ever the rudimental, formula-like expression of that awful problem which nations and humanity itself are slowly and painfully working out?): in the 'moonlight of memory' these sorrowful mementos revisit every one of us; and

----'But I am not _now_
That which I _have been_'--

and _vanitas vanitatum!_ are not only the satisfied croakings of _blasé_ Childe Harolds, but our universal experience; while from childhood's gushing glee even unto manhood's sad satiety, we feel that all are nought but the phantasmagoria

'of a creature
_Moving about in worlds not realized_.'

Listen now to a snatch of melody:

'The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose,
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, wherever I go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth!'

So saith the mild Braminical Wordsworth. Now it will be remembered that Wordsworth, in that glorious ode whence we extract the above, develops the Platonic idea (shall we call Platonic that which has been entertained by the wise and the _feeling_ of all times?) of a shadowy recollection of past and eternal existence in the profundities of the Divine Heart. 'It sounds forth here a mournful remembrance of a faded world of gods and heroes--as the echoing plaint for the loss of man's original, celestial state, and paradisiacal innocence.' And then we have those transcendent lines that come to us like aromatic breezes blowing from the Spice Islands:

'Hence in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,
Our souls have sight of that immortal sea,
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.'

But,

'descending
From these imaginative heights that yield
Far-stretching views into eternity,'--

what have the golden age and Platonic _dicta_ to do with our word-ramble? A good deal. For we will endeavor to show that words, being the very sign-manual of man's convictions, contain the elements of what may throw light on both. To essay this:

Why is it that we generally speak of death as a 'return,' or a 'return home'? And how is it that this same idea has so remarkably interwoven itself with the very warp and woof of our language and poetry?--so that in our fervency, we can sing:

'Jerusalem, my glorious _home_,' etc.

Does not the very idea (not to mention the composition of the word) of a 'return' involve a previously having been in the place? And we can scarcely call that 'home' where we have never been before. So, that 'old Hebrew book' sublimely tells us that 'the spirit of the man _returneth_ to God who gave it.'

Is it possible that these can be obscure intimations of that bygone time when WE were rocked in the bosom of the Divine consciousness? Perhaps.... And now if the reader will pardon a piece of moralizing, we would say that these expressions teach us in the most emphatic way that--'_This is not our rest_.' So that when we have dived into every mine of knowledge and drunk from every fountain of pleasure; when, with Dante, we arrive at the painful conclusion that

'Tutto l'oro, ch'è sotto la luna,
E che già fu, di queste anime stanche
Non poterebbe farne posar una,'

(since, indeed, the Finite can never gain entire satisfaction in itself)--we may not despair, but still the heart-throbbings, knowing that He who has--for a season--enveloped us in the mantle of this sleep-rounded life, and thrown around himself the drapery of the universe--spangling it with stars--will again take us back to his fatherly bosom.

Somewhat analogous to these, and arguing the eternity of our existence, we have such words as 'decease,' which merely imports a _withdrawal_; 'demise,' implying also a laying down, a _removal_. By the way, it is rather curious to observe the notions in the mind of mankind that have given rise to the words expressing 'death.' Thus we have the Latin word _mors_--allied, perhaps, to the Greek [Greek: moros] and [Greek: moira],[1] from [Greek: meiromai]--to _portion out_, to _assign_. Even this, however, there was a repulsion to using; and both the Greeks and Romans were wont to slip clear of the employment of their [Greek: thanatos], _mors_, etc., by such circumlocutions as _vitam suam mutare, transire e seculo_; [Greek: koimêsato chalkeon hypnon]--_he slept the brazen sleep_ (Homer's Iliad, [Greek: Lamda], 241); [Greek: ton de skotos oss' ekalypsen]--_and darkness covered his eyes_ (Iliad, [Greek: Zeta], 11); or _he completeth the destiny of life_, etc. This reminds us of the French aversion to uttering their _mort_. These expressions, again, are suggestive of our 'fate,' with an application similar to the Latin _fatum_, which, indeed, is none other than 'id quod _fatum est_ a deis'--a God's word. So that in this sense we may all be considered 'fatalists,' and all things _fated_. Why not? However, in the following from _Festus_, it is the 'deil' that makes the assertion:

'FESTUS. Forced on us.

LUCIFER. _All things are of necessity._

FESTUS. Then best.

But the good are never fatalists. The bad
Alone act by necessity, they say.

LUCIFER. It matters not what men assume to be;
Or good, or bad, they are but what they are.'

In which we may agree that his majesty was not so very far wrong.

Moreover, 'Why _should_ we mourn departed friends?'--since we know that they are but lying in the [Greek: moimêtêrion] (cemetery)--the _sleeping place_; or, as the vivid old Hebrew faith would have it, _the house of the living_ (Bethaim). Is not this testimony for the soul's immortality worth as much as all the rhapsody written thereon, from Plato to Addison?

Some words are the very essence of poetry; redolent with all beauteous phantasies; odoriferous as flowers in spring, or discoursing an awful organ-melody, like to the re-bellowing of the hoarse-sounding sea. For instance, those two noble old Saxon words 'main' and 'deep,' that we apply to the ocean--what a music is there about them! The 'main' is the _maegen_--the strength, the _strong one_; the great 'deep' is precisely what the name imports. Our employment of 'deep' reminds of the Latin _altum_, which, properly signifying high or lofty, is, by a familiar species of metonymy, put for its opposite.

By the way, how exceedingly timid are our poets and poetasters generally of the open sea--_la pleine mer_. They linger around the shores thereof, in a vain attempt to sit snugly there _à leur aise_, while they 'call spirits from the vasty deep'--that never did and never would come on such conditions, though they grew hoarse over it. We all remember how Sandy Smith labors with making abortive _grabs_ at its _amber tails_, _main_, etc. (rather slippery articles on the whole)--but he is not

'A shepherd in the Hebrid Isles,
_Placed far amid the melancholy main!_'

Hail shade of Thomson! But hear how the exile sings it:

'La mer! partout la mer! des flots, des flots encor!
L'oiseau fatigue en vain son inégal essor.
Ici les flots, là-bas les ondes.
Toujours des flots sans fin par des flots repoussés;
L'oeil ne voit que des flots dans l'abime entassés
Rouler sous les vaques profondes.'[2]

This we, for our part, would pronounce one of the very best open-sea sketches we have ever met with; and if the reader will take even our unequal rendering, he may think so too.

'The sea! all round, the sea! flood, flood o'er billow surges!
In vain the bird fatigued its faltering wing here urges.
Billows beneath, waves, waves around;
Ever the floods (no end!) by urging floods repulsed;
The eye sees but the waves, in an abyss engulphed,
Roll 'neath their lairs profound.'

'Aurora' comes to us as a remnant of that beautiful Grecian mythology that deified and poetized everything; and even to us she is still the 'rosy-fingered daughter of the morn.' The 'Levant,' 'Orient,' and 'Occident' are all of them poetical, for they are all true translations from nature. The 'Levant' is where the sun is _levant_, raising himself up. 'Orient' will be recognized as the same figure from _orior_; while 'occident' is, of course, the opposite in signification, namely, the declining, the 'setting' place.

'Lethe' is another classic myth. It is [Greek: ho tês lêthês potamos]--the river of forgetfulness, 'the oblivious pool.' Perhaps is it that all of us, as well as the son of Thetis, had a dip therein.

There exists not a more poetic expression than 'Hyperborean,' _i. e._ [Greek: hyperboreos]--_beyond Boreas_; or, as a modern poet finely and faithfully expands it:

'Beyond those regions cold
Where dwells the Spirit of the North-Wind,
Boreas old.'

Homer never manifested himself to be more of a poet than in the creation of this word. By the way, the Hyperboreans were regarded by the ancients as an extremely happy and pious people.

How few of those who use that very vague, grandiloquent word 'Ambrosial' know that it has reference to the 'ambrosia' ([Greek: ambrotos], _immortal_), the food of the gods! It has, however, a secondary signification, namely, that of an unguent, or perfume, hence fragrant; and this is probably the prevailing idea in our 'ambrosial': instance Milton's 'ambrosial flowers.' It was, like the 'nectar' ([Greek: nektar], an _elixir vitæ_), considered a veritable elixir of immortality, and consequently denied to men.

The Immortals, in their golden halls of 'many-topped Olympus,' seem to have led a merry-enough life of it over their nectar and ambrosia, their laughter and intrigues.

But not half as jolly were they as were Odin and the Iotun--dead drunk in Valhalla over their mead and ale, from

'the ale-cellars of the Iotun,
Which is called Brimir.'

The daisy (Saxon _Daeges ege_) has often been cited as fragrant with poesy. It is the _Day's Eye_: we remember Chaucer's affectionate lines:

'Of all the floures in the mede
Than love I most those floures of white and rede,
Such that men called _daisies_ in our toun,
To them I have so great affection.'

Nor is he alone in his love for the

_'Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flouer.'_

An odoriferous-enough (etymologic) bouquet could we cull from the names of Flora's children. What a beauty is there in the 'primrose,' which is just the _prime_-rose; in the 'Beauty of the Night' and the 'Morning Glory,' except when a pompous scientific terminology, would convert it into a _convolvulus_! So, too, the 'Anemone' ([Greek: anemos], the wind-flower), into which it is fabled Venus changed her Adonis. What a story of maiden's love does the 'Sweet William' tell; and how many charming associations cluster around the 'Forget-me-not!' Again, is there not poetry in calling a certain family of minute crustacea, whose two eyes meet and form a single round spot in the centre of the head, 'Cyclops'--([Greek: kyklôps], circular-eyed)?

And if any one thinketh that there cannot be poetry even in the dry technicalities of science, let him take such an expression as 'coral,' which, in the original Greek, [Greek: koralion], signifies a _sea damsel_; or the chemical 'cobalt,' 'which,' remarks Webster, 'is said to be the German _Kobold_, a goblin, the demon of the mines; so called by miners, because cobalt was troublesome to miners, and at first its value was not known.' Ah! but these terms were created before _Science_, in its rigidity, had taught us the _truth_ in regard to these matters. Yes! and fortunate is it for us that we still have words, and ideas clustering around these words, that have not yet been chilled and exanimated by the frigid touch of an empirical knowledge. For

'Still the heart doth need a language, still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old names.'

And may benign heaven deliver us from those buckram individuals who imagine that Nature is as narrow and rigid as their own contracted selves, and who would seek to array her in their own exquisite bottle-green bifurcations and a _gilet à la mode_! These characters always put us in mind of the statues of Louis XIV, in which he is represented as Jupiter or Hercules, nude, with the exception of the lion's hide thrown round him--_and the long, flowing peruke_ of the times! O Jupiter _tonans_! let us have either the lion or the ass--only let it be _veracious_!

To proceed: 'Auburn' is probably connected with _brennan_, and means _sun-burned_, analogous, indeed, to 'Ethiopian' ([Greek: Aithiops]), _one whom the sun has looked upon_.

How seldom do we think, in uttering 'adieu,' that we verily say, I commend you _à Dieu_--to God; that the lightly-spoken _good-by_ means _God be wi' you_,[3] or that the (if possible) still more frequent and _unthinking_ 'thank you,' in reality assures the person addressed--_I will think often of you_.

'Eld' is a word that has the poetic aroma about it, and is an example (of which we might adduce additional cases from the domain of 'poetic diction') of a word set aside from a prose use and devoted exclusively to poetry. It is, as we know, Saxon, signifying _old_ or _old age_, and was formerly in constant use in this sense; as, for instance, in Chaucer's translation of _Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiæ_, we find thus:

'At laste no drede ne might overcame tho muses, that thei ne weren
fellowes, and foloweden my waie, that is to saie, when I was
exiled, thei that weren of my youth whilom welfull and grene,
comforten now sorrowfull weirdes of me olde man: for _elde_ is
comen unwarely upon me, hasted by the harmes that I have, and
sorowe hath commaunded his age to be in me.'

So in the _Knightes Tale_:

'As sooth in said _elde_ hath gret avantage;
In _elde_ is both wisdom and usage:
Men may the old out-renne but not out-rede.'

Oh! what an overflowing fulness of truth and beauty is there wrapped up in the core of these articulations that we so heedlessly utter, would we but make use of the wizard's wand wherewith to evoke them! What an exhaustless wealth does there lie in even the humblest fruitage and flowerage of language, and what a fecundity have even dry 'roots'!

'Thinkest thou there were no poets till Dan Chaucer?' asks our great Thomas; 'no heart burning with a thought, which it could not hold, and had no word for; and needed to shape and coin a word for--what thou callest a metaphor, trope, or the like? For every word we have, there was such a man and poet. The coldest word was once a glowing new metaphor, and bold questionable originality. 'Thy very ATTENTION, does it not mean an _attentio_, a STRETCHING-TO?' Fancy that act of the mind which all were conscious of, which none had yet named--when this new 'poet' first felt bound and driven to name it! His questionable originality and new glowing metaphor was found adoptible, intelligible; and remains our name for it to this day.'[4]

This seems to be a pet etymology of Carlyle, as he makes Professor Teufelsdröckh give it to us also.

Nor less of a poet was that Grecian man who first named this beauteous world--with its boundless unity in variety--the [Greek: kosmos],[5] the _order_, the _adornment_. But

'Alas, for the rarity
Of Christian charity,'

and

'Ah! the inanity
Of frail humanity,'

that first induced some luckless mortal to give to certain mysterious compounds the appellation of _cosmetics_! But here is an atonement; for even in our unmythical, unbelieving days, the god 'Terminus' is made to stand guard over every railway station! Again, how finely did the Roman call his heroism his 'virtus'--his _vir_tue--his _manliness_. With the Italians, however, it became quite a different thing; for his 'virtu' is none other than his love of the fine arts (these being to him the only subject of _manly_ occupation), a mere _objet de vertu_; and his _virtuoso_ has no more virtuousness or manliness about him than what appertains to being skilled in these same fine arts. With us, our 'virtue' is ... well, as soon as we can find out, we will tell you.

By the way, in what a _bathos_ of mystery are most of our terms expressing the moral relations plunged! Some philosophers have declared that truth lies at the bottom of a well;--the well in which the truth in regard to these matters lies would seem to stretch far enough down--reaching, in fact, almost to the kingdom of the Inane. The beautiful simplicity of Bible truths has often become so perverted--so overloaded by the vain works (and _words_) of man's device--as barely to escape total extinction. Witness 'repentance'; in what a farrago of endless absurdities and palpable contradictions has this word (and, more unfortunately still, the thing itself along with it) been enveloped! According to the 'divines,' what does it not signify? Its composition, we very well know, gives us _poenitentia_, from _poenitere_, to _be sorry_, to _regret_--and such is its true and _only_ meaning. 'This design' (that of the analysis of language in its elementary forms), says Wilkins, 'will likewise contribute much to the clearing of some of our modern differences in religion; by unmasking many wild errors, that shelter themselves under the disguise of affected phrases; which being philosophically unfolded, and rendered according to the genuine and natural importance of words, will appear to be inconsistencies and absurdities.' Nor would he have gone very far astray had he put _philosophy_ and _politics_ under the same category. Strip the gaudy dress and trappings from an expression, and it will have a most marked result. Analysis is a terrible humiliation to your mysticism and your grandiloquence--and an awful bore to those who depend for effect on either. We have something to say hereafter on those astonishingly profound oracles whose only depth is in the terminology they employ. In the mean time, expect not too much of words. Never, in all our philologic researches, must we lose sight of the fact that _words are but the daughters of earth, while things are the sons of heaven_. This expecting too much of words has been the fruitful source of innumerable errors. To resume:

Take a dozen words (to prove our generosity, we will let it be a baker's dozen) illustrative of this same principle of metaphor that governs the mechanism of language, and sheds a glory and a beauty around even our every-day fireside words; so that even those that seem hackneyed, worn out, and apparently tottering with the imbecility of old age--would we but get into the core of them--will shine forth with all the expressive meaning of their spring time--with the blush and bloom of poesy--

'All redolent with youth and flowers,'

and prove their very abusers--poets.

The 'halcyon' days! What a balmy serenity hovers around them--basking in the sunlight of undisturbed tranquillity. This we feel; but how we realize it after reading the little _family secret_ that it wraps up! The [Greek: Halkyôn] (halcyon)--_alcedo hispida_--was the name applied by the Greeks to the _kingfisher_ (a name commonly derived from [Greek: hals, kyô], i. e., _sea-conceiving_, from the fact of this bird's being said to lay her eggs in rocks near the sea); and the [Greek: halkyonides hêmerai]--_halcyon days_--were those fourteen 'during the calm weather about the winter solstice,' during which the bird was said to build her nest and lay her eggs; hence, by an easy transition, perfect quietude in general.

Those who have felt the bitter, biting effect of 'sarcasm,' will hardly be disposed to consider it a metaphor even, should we trace it back to the Greek [Greek: sarkazô]--_to tear off the flesh_ ([Greek: sarx]), _literally_, to 'flay.' 'Satire,' again, has an arbitrary-enough origin; it is _satira_, from _satur_, _mixed_; and the application is as follows: each species of poetry had, among the Romans, its own special kind of versification; thus the hexameter was used in the epic, the iambic in the drama, etc. Ennius, however, the earliest Latin 'satirist,' first disregarded these conventionalities, and introduced a _medley_ (satira) of all kinds of metres. It afterward, however, lost this idea of a _melange_, and acquired the notion of a poem 'directed against the vices and failings of men with a view to their correction.'

Perhaps we owe to reviewing the metaphorical applications of such terms as 'caustic,' 'mordant,' 'piquant,' etc., in their _burning_, _biting_, and _pricking_ senses.

But 'review,' itself, we are to regard as pure metaphor. Our friend 'Snooks,' at least, found _that_ out; for, instead of _re_-viewing--_i. e._, viewing again and again his book, they pronounced it to be decidedly bad without any examination whatever. A 'critic' we all recognize in his character of _judge_ or _umpire_; but is it that he always possesses discrimination--has he always _insight_ (for these are the primary ideas attaching themselves to [Greek: krinô], whence [Greek: kritikos] comes)--does he divide between the merely arbitrary and incidental, and see into the absolute and eternal Art-Soul that vivifies a poem or a picture? If so, then is he a critic indeed.

How perfectly do 'invidiousness' and 'envy'[6] express the _looking over against_ (_in-video_)--the _askance gaze_--the natural development of that painful mental state which poor humanity is so subject to! So with 'obstinacy' (_ob-sto_), which, by the way, the phrenologists represent, literally enough, by an ass in a position which assuredly Webster had in his mind when he wrote his definition of this word; thus: ... '_in a fixedness in opinion or resolution that cannot be shaken at all, or without great difficulty_.'

Speaking of this reminds us of those very capital 'Illustrations of Phrenology,' by Cruikshank, with which we all are familiar, and where, for example, '_veneration_ is exemplified by a stout old gentleman, with an ample paunch, gazing with admiring eyes and uplifted hands on the fat side of an ox fed by Mr. Heavyside, and exhibited at the stall of a butcher. In this way a Jew old-clothes man, holding his hand on his breast with the utmost earnestness, while in the other he offers a coin for a pair of slippers, two pairs of boots, three hats, and a large bundle of clothes, to an old woman, who, evidently astonished all over, exclaims, 'A shilling!' is an illustration of _conscientiousness_. A dialogue of two fishwomen at Billingsgate illustrates _language_, and a riot at Donnybrook Fair explains the phrenological doctrine of _combativeness_.'

But peace to the 'bumps,' and pass we on. Could anything be more completely metaphorical than such expressions as 'egregious' and 'fanatic?' 'Egregious' is chosen, _e-grex_--_out of the flock_, i. e., the best sheep, etc., selected from the rest, and set aside for sacred purposes; hence, _distingué_. This word, though occupying at present comparatively neutral ground, seems fast merging toward its worst application. Can it be that an 'egregious' _rogue_ is an article of so much more frequent occurrence than an 'egregiously' _honest_ man, that incongruity seems to subsist between the latter? 'Fanatic,' again, is just the Roman '_fanaticus_,' one addicted to the _fana_,[7] the temples in which the 'fanatici' or fanatics were wont to spend an extraordinary portion of their time. But besides this, their religious fervor used to impel them to many extravagances, such as cutting themselves with knives, etc., and hence an 'ultraist' (one who goes _beyond_ (ultra) the notions of other people) in any sense. Whereupon it might be remarked that though

'Coelum, non animum, mutant qui trans mare currunt,'

may, in certain applications, be true, it is surely not so in the case of a good many words. Thus this very instance, 'fanatic,' which, among the Romans, implied one who had an _extra share of devotion_, is, among us--the better informed on this head--by a very curious and very unfathomable figure (disfigure?) of speech or logic, applied to one who has a peculiar _penchant_ for human liberty!

'In the most high and _palmy_ state of Rome,
A little ere the mighty Julius fell,
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.'

We do not quote this for the sake of the making-the-hair-to-stand-on-end tendencies of the last two lines, but through the voluptuous quiescence of the first,

'In the most high and palmy state of Rome,'

to introduce the beautifully metaphorical expression, 'palmy.' It will, of course, be immediately recognized as being from the 'palm' tree; that is to say, _palm-abounding_. And what visions of orient splendor does it bear with it, wafting on its wings the very aroma of the isles of the blest--[Greek: makarôn nêsoi]--or

'Where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold!'

It bears us away with it, and we stand on that sun-kissed land

'Whose rivers wander over sands of gold,'

with a houri lurking in every 'bosky bourne,' and the beauteous palm, waving its umbrageous head, at once food, shade, and shelter.

The palm being to the Oriental of such passing price, we can easily imagine how he would so enhance its value as to make it the type of everything that is prosperous and glorious and 'palmy,' the _beau-ideal_ of everything that is flourishing. Hear what Sir Walter Raleigh says on this subject: 'Nothing better proveth the excellency of this soil than the abundant growing of the _palm trees_ without labor of man. _This tree alone giveth unto man whatsoever his life beggeth at nature's hand._'

'Paradise,' too, is oriental in all its associations. It is [Greek: paradeisos],[8] that is, a _park_ or _pleasure ground_, in which sense it is constantly employed by Xenophon, as every weary youth who has _parasanged_ it with him knows. By the LXX it was used in a metaphorical sense for the garden of Eden:

'The glories we have known,
And that imperial palace whence we came;'

but a still loftier meaning did it acquire when the Christ employed it as descriptive of the splendors of the 'better land'--of the glories and beauties of the land Beulah.

But, look out, fellow strollers, for we are off in a tangent!

What a curiously humble origin has 'literature,' contrasted with the magnitude of its present import. It is just 'litteral'--_letters_ in their most primitive sense; and [Greek: grammata] is nought other. Nor can even all the pomposity of the 'belles-lettres' carry us any farther than the very fine 'letters' or _litteral_; while even Solomon So-so may take courage when he reflects (provided Solomon be ever guilty of reflecting) that the 'literati' have 'literally' nothing more profound about them than the knowledge of their 'letters.' The Latins were prolific in words of this kind; thus they had the _literatus_ and the _literator_--making some such discrimination between them as we do between 'philosopher' and 'philosophe.'

'Unlettered,' to be sure, is one who is unacquainted even with his 'letters;' but what is 'erudite?' It is merely E, _out of_, a RUDIS, _rude_, _chaotic_, _ignorant_ state of things; and thus in itself asserts nothing very tremendous, and makes no very prodigious pretensions. Surely these words had their origin at an epoch when 'letters' stood higher in the scale of estimation than they do now; when he who knew them possessed a spell that rendered him a potent character among the 'unlettered.'

A 'spell' did we say? Perhaps that is not altogether fanciful; for 'spell' itself in the Saxon primarily imports a _word_; and we know that the runes or Runic letters were long employed in this way. For instance, Mr. Turner thus informs us ('History of the Anglo-Saxons,' vol. i, p. 169): 'It was the invariable policy of the Roman ecclesiastics to discourage the use of the Runic characters, because they were of pagan origin, and had been much connected with idolatrous superstitions.' And if any one be incredulous, let him read this from Sir Thomas Brown: 'Some have delivered the polity of spirits, that they stand in awe of charms, _spells_, and conjurations; _letters_, characters, notes, and dashes.' And have not the [Greek: Alpha] and [Greek: Ômega] something mystic and cabalistic about them even to us?

While on this, let us note that 'spell' gives us the beautiful and cheering expression 'gospel,' which is precisely _God's-spell_--the 'evangile,' the good God's-news!

To resume:

'Graphical' ([Greek: graphô]) is just what is well delineated--_literally_, 'well written,' or, as our common expression corroboratively has it, _like a book_!

'Style' and 'stiletto' would, from their significations, appear to be radically very different words; and yet they are something more akin than even cousins-german. 'Style' is known to be from the [Greek: stylos], or _stylus_, which the Greeks and Romans employed in writing on their waxen tablets; and, as they were both sharp and strong, they became in the hands of scholars quite formidable instruments when used against their schoolmasters. Afterward they came to be employed in all the bloody relations and uses to which a 'bare bodkin' can be put, and hence our acceptation of 'stiletto.' Cæsar himself, it is supposed, got his 'quietus' by means of a 'stylus;' nor is he the first or last character whose 'style' has been his (_literary_, if not _literal_) damnation.

'Volume,' too, how perfectly metaphorical is it in its present reception! It is originally just a _volumen_, that is, a 'roll' of parchment, papyrus, or whatever else the 'book' (i. e., the _bark_--the 'liber') might be composed of. Nor can we regard as aught other such terms as 'leaf' or 'folio,' which is also 'leaf.' 'Stave,' too, is suggestive of the _staff_ on which the runes were wont to be cut. Indeed, old almanacs are sometimes to be met with consisting of these long sticks or 'staves,' on which the days and months are represented by the Runic letters.

'Charm,' 'enchant,' and 'incantation' all owe their origin to the time when spells were in vogue. 'Charm' is just _carmen_, from the fact that 'a kind of Runic rhyme' was employed in _diablerie_ of this sort; so 'enchant' and 'incantation' are but a _singing to_--a true 'siren's song;' while 'fascination' took its rise when the mystic terrors of the _evil eye_ threw its withering blight over many a heart.

We are all familiar with the old fable of _The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse_. We will vouch that the following read us as luminous a comment thereon as may be desired: 'Polite,' 'urbane,' 'civil,' 'rustic,' 'villain,' 'savage,' 'pagan,' 'heathen.' Let us seek the moral:

'Polite,' 'urbane,' and 'civil' we of course recognize as being respectively from [Greek: polis], _urbs_, and _civis_, each denoting the city or town--_la grande ville_. 'Polite' is _city-like_; while 'urbanity' and 'civility' carry nothing deeper with them than the graces and the attentions that belong to the punctilious town. 'Rustic' we note as implying nothing more uncultivated than a 'peasant,' which is just _pays_-an, or, as we also say, a 'countryman.' 'Savage,' too, or, as we ought to write it, _salvage_,[9] is nothing more grim or terrible than one who dwells _in sylvis_, in the woods--a meaning we can appreciate from our still comparatively pure application of the adjective _sylvan_. A 'backwoodsman' is therefore the very best original type of a _savage_! 'Savage' seems to be hesitating between its civil and its ethical applications; 'villain,' 'pagan,' and 'heathen,' however, have become quite absorbed in their moral sense--and this by a contortion that would seem strange enough were we not constantly accustomed to such transgressions. For we need not to be informed that 'villain' primarily and properly implies simply one who inhabits a ville or _village_. In Chaucer, for example, we see it without at least any moral signification attached thereto:

'But firste I praie you of your curtesie
That ye ne arette it not my _vilanie_.'

_Prologue to the Canterbury Tales._

So a 'pagan,' or _paganus_, is but a dweller in a _pagus_, or village; precisely equivalent to the Greek [Greek: kômêtês], with no other idea whatever attached thereto; while 'heathen' imported those who lived on the _heaths_ or in the country, consequently far away from _civilization_ or _town-like-ness_.

From all of which expressions we may learn the mere conventionality and the utter arbitrariness of even our most important ethical terms. How prodigiously _cheap_ is the application of any such epithets, considering the terrible abuse they have undergone! And how poor is that philosophy that can concentrate 'politeness' and 'civility' in the frippery and heartlessness of mere external city-forms; and convert the man who dwells in the woods or in the village into a _savage_ or a _villain_! How fearful a lack do these numerous words and their so prolific analogues manifest of acknowledgment of that glorious principle which Burns has with fire-words given utterance to--and to which, would we preserve the dignity of manhood, we must hold on--

'A man's a man for a' that!'

Ah! it is veritably enough to make us atrabiliar! Here we see words in their weaknesses and their meannesses, as elsewhere in their glory and beauty. And not so much _their_ meanness and weakness, as that of those who have distorted these innocent servants of truth to become tools of falsehood and the abject instruments of the extinction of all honesty and nobleness.

The word 'health' wraps up in it--for, indeed, it is hardly metaphorical--a whole world of thought and suggestion. It is that which _healeth_ or maketh one to be _whole_, or, as the Scotch say, _hale_; which _whole_ or _hale_ (for they are one word) may imply entireness or unity; that is to say, perfect 'health' is that state of the system in which there is no disorganization--no division of interest--but when it is recognized as a perfect _one_ or whole; or, in other words, not recognized at all. And this meaning is confirmed by our analogue _sanity_, which, from _sanus_, and allied to [Greek: saos], has underneath it a similar basis.

Every student of Carlyle will remember the very telling use to which he puts the idea contained in this word--speaking of the manifold relations of physical, psychal, and social health. Reference is made to his employment of it in the 'Characteristics'--itself one of the most authentic and veracious pieces of philosophy that it has been our lot to meet with for a long time; yet wherein he proves the impossibility of any, and the uselessness of all philosophies. Listen while he discourses thereon: 'So long as the several elements of life, all fitly adjusted, can pour forth their movement like harmonious tuned strings, it is melody and unison: life, from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in celestial music and diapason--which, also, like that other music of the spheres, even because it is perennial and complete, without interruption and without imperfection, might be fabled to escape the ear. Thus, too, in some languages, is the state of health well denoted by a term expressing unity; when we feel ourselves as we wish to be, we say that we are _whole_.'

But our psychal and social wholeness or health, as well as our physical, is yet, it would appear, in the future, in the good time _coming_--

'When man to man
Shall brothers be and a' that!'

Even that, however, is encouraging--that it is _in prospectu_. For we know that _right before us_ lies this great promised land--this _Future_, teeming with all the donations of infinite time, and bursting with blessings. And for us, too, there are in waiting [Greek: makarôn nêsoi], or Islands of the Blest, where all heroic doers and all heroic sufferers shall enjoy rest forever!

In conclusion, take the benediction of serene old Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, in his preface to 'Don Quixote' (could we possibly have a better?): 'And so God give you _health_, not forgetting me. Farewell!'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: This alliance may be fanciful (though we observe some of the best German lexicographers have it so); a better origin might, perhaps, be found in the Sanscrit _mri_, etc.]

[Footnote 2: 'Les Orientals,' par VICTOR HUGO. _Le Feu du ciel._]

[Footnote 3: The 'by' may, however, have the force of going or passing, equivalent to 'fare' in 'farewell,' or 'welfare,' _i. e._, may you have a good passage or journey.]

[Footnote 4: 'Past and Present,' pp. 128, 129.]

[Footnote 5: Compare with this the Latin _mundus_, which is exactly analogous in signification.]

[Footnote 6: En-voir.]

[Footnote 7: Perhaps nothing could better prove how profoundly _religious_ were the Latins than a word compounded of the above; namely 'profane.' A 'fanatic' was one who devoted himself to the _fanum_ or temple--'profane' is an object devoted to _anything else 'pro'_--_instead of_--the '_fanum_,' or fane.]

[Footnote 8: The word is more properly oriental than Greek, _e. g._, Hebrew, _pardes_, and Sanscrit, _paradêsa_.]

[Footnote 9: See the Italian _setvaggio_ and the Spanish _salvage_, in which a more approximate orthography has been retained.]

THE CHECH.

"Chcés li tajnou véc aneb pravdu vyzvédéti, blazen, dité, opily clovék o tom umeji povedeti."

"Wouldst thou know a truth or mystery,
A drunkard, fool, or child may tell it thee."

_Bohemian Proverb._

And now I'll wrap my blanket o'er me,
And on the tavern floor I'll lie;
A double spirit-flask before me,
And watch the pipe clouds melting die.

They melt and die--but ever darken,
As night comes on and hides the day;
Till all is black;--then, brothers, hearken!
And if ye can, write down my lay!

In yon black loaf my knife is gleaming,
Like one long sail above the boat;--
--As once at Pesth I saw it beaming,
Half through a curst Croatian throat.

Now faster, faster whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder turns my brain;
And still I'll drink--till, past all feeling,
The soul leaps forth to light again.

Whence come these white girls wreathing round me?
Baruska!--long I thought thee dead!
Kacenka!--when these arms last bound thee,
Thou laidst by Rajhrad cold as lead!

Now faster, faster whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder turns my brain;
And from afar a star comes stealing,
Straight at me o'er the death-black plain.

Alas!--I sink--my spirits miss me,
I swim, I shoot from sky to shore!
Klarà! thou golden sister--kiss me!
I rise--I'm safe--I'm strong once more.

And faster, faster whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder turns my brain;
The star!--it strikes my soul, revealing
All life and light to me again.

* * * * *

Against the waves fresh waves are dashing,
Above the breeze fresh breezes blow;
Through seas of light new light is flashing,
And with them all I float and flow.

But round me rings of fire are gleaming:
Pale rings of fire--wild eyes of death!
Why haunt me thus awake or dreaming?
Methought I left ye with my breath.

Aye glare and stare with life increasing,
And leech-like eyebrows arching in;
Be, if ye must, my fate unceasing,
But never hope a fear to win.

He who knows all may haunt the haunting,
He who fears nought hath conquered fate;
Who bears in silence quells the daunting,
And sees his spoiler desolate.

Oh wondrous eyes of star-like lustre,
How ye have changed to guardian love!
Alas!--where stars in myriads cluster
Ye vanish in the heaven above.

* * * * *

I hear two bells so softly singing:
How sweet their silver voices roll!
The one on yonder hill is ringing,
The other peals within my soul.

I hear two maidens gently talking,
Bohemian maidens fair to see;
The one on yonder hill is walking,
The other maiden--where is she?

Where is she?--when the moonlight glistens
O'er silent lake or murm'ring stream,
I hear her call my soul which listens:
'Oh! wake no more--come, love, and dream!'

She came to earth-earth's loveliest creature;
She died--and then was born once more;
Changed was her race, and changed each feature,
But oh! I loved her as before.

We live--but still, when night has bound us
In golden dreams too sweet to last,
A wondrous light-blue world around us,
She comes, the loved one of the Past.

I know not which I love the dearest,
For both my loves are still the same;
The living to my heart is nearest,
The dead love feeds the living flame.

And when the moon, its rose-wine quaffing
Which flows across the Eastern deep,
Awakes us, Klarà chides me laughing,
And says, 'We love too well in sleep!'

And though no more a Vojvod's daughter,
As when she lived on Earth before,
The love is still the same which sought her,
And she is true--what would you more?

* * * * *

Bright moonbeams on the sea are playing,
And starlight shines o'er vale and hill;
I should be gone--yet still delaying,
By thy loved side I linger still!

My gold is gone--my hopes have perished,
And nought remains save love for thee!
E'en that must fade, though once so cherished:
Farewell!--and think no more of me!

'Though gold be gone and hope departed,
And nought remain save love for me,
Thou ne'er shalt leave me broken-hearted,
For I will share my life with thee!

'Thou deem'st me but a wanton maiden,
The plaything of thy idle hours;
But laughing streams with gold are laden,
And sweets are hidden 'neath the flowers.

'E'en outcasts may have heart and feeling,
E'en such as I be fond and true;
And love, like light, in dungeons stealing,
Though bars be there, will still burst through.'

PICTURES FROM THE NORTH.

It is worth while to live in the city, that we may learn to love the country; and it is not bad for many, that artificial life binds them with bonds of silk or lace or rags or cobwebs, since, when they are rent away, the Real gleams out in a beauty and with a zest which had not been save for contrast.

Contrast is the salt of the beautiful. I wonder that the ancients, who came so near it in so many ways, never made a goddess of Contrast. They had something like it in ever-varying Future--something like it in double-faced Janus, who was their real 'Angel of the Odd.' Perhaps it is my ignorance which is at fault--if so, I pray you correct me. The subtle Neo-Platonists _must_ have apotheosized such a savor to all æsthetic bliss. Mostly do I feel its charm when there come before me pictures true to life of far lands and lives, of valley and river, sea and shore. Then I forget the narrow office and the shop-lined street, the rattling cars and hurried hotel-lodgment, and think what it would be if nature, in all her freshness and never-ending contrasts, could be my ever-present.

I thought this yesterday, in glancing over an old manuscript in my drawer, containing translations, by some hand to me unknown, of sketches of Sweden by the fairy-story teller Hans Christian Andersen. Reader, will they strike you as pleasantly as they did me? I know not. Let us glance them over. They have at least the full flavor of the North, of the healthy land of frost and pines, of fragrant birch and of sweeter meadow-grass, and simpler, holier flowers than the rich South ever showed, even in her simplest moods.

The first of these sketches sweeps us at once far away over the Northland:

'WE JOURNEY.

'It is spring, fragrant spring, the birds are singing. You do not
understand their song? Then hear it in free translation:

''Seat thyself upon my back!' said the stork, the holy bird of our
green island. 'I will carry thee over the waves of the Sound.
Sweden also has its fresh, fragrant beechwoods, green meadows, and
fields of waving corn; in Schoonen, under the blooming apple trees
behind the peasant's house, thou wilt imagine thyself still in
Denmark!'

''Fly with me,' said the swallow. 'I fly over Hal-land's mountain
ridges, where the beeches cease. I soar farther toward the north
than the stork. I will show you where the arable land retires
before rocky valleys. You shall see friendly towns, old churches,
solitary court yards, within which it is cosy and pleasant to
dwell, where the family stands in circle around the table with the
smoking platters, and asks a blessing through the mouth of the
youngest child, and morning and evening sings a holy song. I have
heard it, I have seen it, when I was yet small, from my nest under
the roof.'

''Come! come!' cried the unsteady seagull, impatiently waiting, and
ever flying round in a circle. 'Follow me into the Scheeren, where
thousands of rocky islands, covered with pines and firs, lie along
the coasts like flower beds; where the fisherman draws full nets!'

''Let yourself down between our outspread wings!' sing the wild
swans. 'We will bear you to the great seas, to the ever-roaring,
arrow-quick mountain streams, where the oak does not thrive and the
birches are stunted; let yourself down between our outspread
wings,--we soar high over Sulitelma, the eye of the island, as the
mountain is called; we fly from the spring-green valley, over the
snow waves, up to the summit of the mountain, whence you may catch
a glimpse of the North Sea, beyond Norway. We fly toward Jamtland,
with its high blue mountains, where the waterfalls roar, where the
signal fires flame up as signs from coast to coast that they are
waiting for the ferry boat--up to the deep, cold, hurrying floods,
which do not see the sun set in midsummer, where twilight is dawn!'

'So sing the birds! Shall we hearken to their song--follow them, at
least a short way? We do not seat ourselves upon the wings of the
swan, nor upon the back of the stork; we stride forward with steam
and horses, sometimes upon our own feet, and glance, at the same
time, now and then, from the actual, over the hedge into the
kingdom of fancy, that is always our near neighborland, and pluck
flowers or leaves, which shall be placed together in the memorandum
book--they bud indeed on the flight of the journey. We fly, and we
sing: Sweden, thou glorious land! Sweden, whither holy gods came in
remote antiquity from the mountains of Asia; thou land that art yet
illumined by their glitter! It streams out of the flowers, with the
name of Linnæus; it beams before thy knightly people from the
banner of Charles the Twelfth, it sounds out of the memorial stone
erected upon the field at Lutzen. Sweden! thou land of deep
feeling, of inward songs, home of the clear streams, where wild
swans sing in the northern light's glimmer! thou land, upon whose
deep, still seas the fairies of the North build their colonnades
and lead their struggling spirit-hosts over the ice mirror.
Glorious Sweden, with the perfume-breathing Linea, with Jenny's
soulful songs! To thee will we fly with the stork and the swallow,
with the unsteady seagull and the wild swan. Thy birchwood throws
out its perfume so refreshing and animating, under its hanging,
earnest boughs--on its white trunk shall the harp hang. Let the
summer wind of the North glide murmuring over its strings.'

There is true fatherland's love there. I doubt if there was ever yet _real_ patriotism in a hot climate--the North is the only home of unselfish and great union. Italy owes it to the cool breezes of her Apennines that she cherishes unity; had it not been for her northern mountains in a southern clime, she would have long ago forgotten to think of _one_ country. But while the Alps are her backbone, she will always be at least a vertebrate among nations, and one of the higher order. Without the Alps she would soon be eaten up by the cancer of states' rights. It is the North, too, which will supply the great uniting power of America, and keep alive a love for the great national name.

Very different is the rest--and yet it has too the domestic home-tone of the North. In Sweden, in Germany, in America, in England, the family tie is somewhat other than in the East or in any warm country. With us, old age is not so ever-neglected and little honored as in softer climes. Thank the fireside for that. The hearth, and the stove, and the long, cold months which keep the grandsire and granddame in the easy chair by the warm corner, make a home centre, where the children linger as long as they may for stories, and where love lingers, kept alive by many a cheerful, not to be easily told tie. And it lives--this love--lives in the heart of the man after he has gone forth to business or to battle: he will not tell you of it, but he remembers grandmother and grandfather, as he saw them a boy--the centre of the group, which will never form again save in heaven.

Let us turn to

'THE GRANDMOTHER.

'Grandmother is very old, has many wrinkles, and perfectly white
hair; but her eyes gleam like two stars, yes, much more beautiful;
they are so mild, it does one good to look into them! And then she
knows how to relate the most beautiful stories. And she has a dress
embroidered with great, great flowers; it is such a heavy silk
stuff that it rattles. Grandmother knows a great deal, because she
has lived much longer than father and mother; that is certain!
Grandmother has a hymn book with strong silver clasps, and she
reads very often in the book. In the midst of it lies a rose,
pressed and dry; it is not so beautiful as the rose which stands in
the glass, but yet she smiles upon it in the most friendly way;
indeed, it brings the tears to her eyes! Why does grandmother look
so at the faded flower in the old book? Do you know? Every time
that grandmother's tears fall upon the flower, the colors become
fresh again, the rose swells up and fills the whole room with its
fragrance, the walls disappear, as if they were only mist, and
round about her is the green, glorious wood, where the sun beams
through the leaves of the trees; and grandmother is young again; a
charming maiden, with full red cheeks, beautiful and innocent--no
rose is fresher; but the eyes, the mild, blessing eyes, still
belong to grandmother. At her side sits a young man, large and
powerful: he reaches her the rose, and she smiles--grandmother does
not smile so now! oh yes, look now!----But he has vanished: many
thoughts, many forms sweep past--the beautiful young man is gone,
the rose lies in the hymn book, and grandmother sits there again as
an old woman, and looks upon the faded rose which lies in the book.

'Now grandmother is dead. She sat in the armchair and related a
long, beautiful story; she said, 'Now the story is finished, and I
am tired;' and she leaned her head back, in order to sleep a
little. We could hear her breathing--she slept; but it became
stiller and stiller, her face was full of happiness and peace, it
was as if a sunbeam illumined her features; she smiled again, and
then the people said, 'She is dead.' She was placed in a black box;
there she lay covered with white linen; she was very beautiful, and
yet her eyes were closed, but every wrinkle had vanished; she lay
there with a smile about her mouth; her hair was silver white,
venerable, but it did not frighten one to look upon the corpse, for
it was indeed the dear, kind-hearted grandmother. The hymn book was
placed under her head--this she had herself desired; the rose lay
in the old book; and then they buried grandmother.