Chapter XI: Part I: Reviews (6)

We have had some opportunity to observe that the worst works offered are rejected. On the steamboats we have seen translations of vile books, bought by those who did not know from the names of their authors what to expect, torn, after a cursory glance at their contents, and scattered to the winds. Not even the all but all-powerful desire to get one's money's worth, since it had once been paid, could contend against the blush of shame that rose on the cheek of the reader.

It would be desirable for our people to know something of these writers, and of the position they occupy abroad; for the nature of their circulation, rather than its extent, might be the guide both to translator and buyer. The object of the first is generally money; of the last, amusement. But the merest mercenary might prefer to pass his time in translating a good book, and our imitation of Europe does not yet go so far that the American milliner can be depended on to copy any thing from the Parisian grisette, except her cap.

We have just been reading "Le Pere Goriot," Balzac's most celebrated work; a remarkable production, to which Paris alone, at the present day, could have given birth.

In other of his works, I have admired his skill in giving the minute traits of passion, and his intrepidity, not inferior to that of Le Sage and Cervantes, in facing the dark side of human nature. He reminds one of the Spanish romancers in the fearlessness with which he takes mud into his hands, and dips his foot in slime. We cannot endure this when done, as by most Frenchmen, with an air of recklessness and gayety; but Balzac does it with the stern manliness of a Spaniard.

But the conception of this work is so sublime, that, though the details are even more revolting than in his others, you can bear it, and would not have missed your walk through the Catacombs, though the light of day seems stained afterwards with the mould of horror and dismay.

Balzac, we understand, is one of that wretched class of writers who live by the pen. In Paris they count now by thousands, and their leaves fall from the press thick-rustling like the November forest. I had heard of this class not without envy, for I had been told pretty tales of the gay poverty of the Frenchman--how he will live in garrets, on dry bread, salad, and some wine, and spend all his money on a single good suit of clothes, in which, when the daily labor of copying music, correcting the press, or writing poems or novels, is over, he sallies forth to enjoy the theatre, the social soiree, or the humors of the streets and cafes, as gay, as keenly alive to observation and enjoyment, as if he were to return to a well-stocked table and a cheerful hearth, encompassed by happy faces.

I thought the intellectual Frenchman, in the extreme of want, never sunk into the inert reverie of the lazzaroni, nor hid the vulture of famine beneath the mantle of pride with the bitter mood of a Spaniard. But Balzac evidently is familiar with that which makes the agony of poverty--its vulgarity.

Dirt, confusion, shabby expedients, living to live,--these are what make poverty terrible and odious, and in these Balzac would seem to have been steeped to the very lips.

These French writers possess the art of plunging at once _in medias res_, and Balzac places you, in the twinkling of an eye, in one of the lowest boarding-houses of Paris. At first all is dirt, hubbub, and unsavory odors; but from the vapors of the caldron evolves a web of many-colored life, of terrible pathos, and original humor, not unenlivened by pale golden threads of beauty, which had better never been.

All the characters are excellently drawn: the harpy mistress of the house; Mlle. Michonnet the spy, and her imbecile lover; Mme. Coutuner, with her purblind strivings after virtue, and her real, though meagre respectability; Vautrim, the disguised galley-slave, with his cynical philosophy and Bonaparte character; and the young students of medicine, cheering the dense fog with the scintillations of their wit, and the joyousness and petulance with which their age meets the most adverse circumstances, at least in France!

The connection between this abject poverty and the highest luxury of Parisian life is made naturally by Eugene, connected to his misfortune with a noble family, of which his own is a poor and young branch, studying a profession and sighing to live like a duke, and _Le Pere Goriot_, who has stripped himself of all his wealth for his daughters, who are more naturally unnatural than those of Lear. The transitions are made with as much swiftness as a curtain is drawn upon the stage, yet with no feeling of abruptness, so skilfully are the incidents woven into one another.

And be it recorded to the credit of Balzac, that, much as he appears to have suffered from the want of wealth, the vices which pollute it are represented with as terrible force as those of poverty.

The book affords play for similar powers, and brings a similar range of motives into action with Scott's "Fortunes of Nigel." If less rich than that work, it is more original, and has a force of pencil all its own.

Insight and a master's hand are admirable throughout; but the product of genius is _Le Pere Goriot_. And, wonderful to relate, this character is as much ennobled, made as poetical by abandonment to a single instinct, as others by the force of will. Prometheus, chained on his rock, and giving his heart to the birds of prey for aims so majestic, is scarcely a more affecting, a more reverent object, than the rich confectioner whose intellect has never been awakened at all, except in the way of buying and selling, and who gives up his acuteness even there, and commits such unspeakable follies through paternal love; a _blind_ love too, nowise superior to that of the pelican!

Analyze it as you will, see the difference between this and the instinct of the artist or the philanthropist, and it produces on your mind the same impression of a present divinity. And scarce any tears could be more sacred than those which choke the breath at the death-bed of this man, who forgot that he was a man, to be wholly a father, this poor, mad, stupid, father Goriot. I know nothing in fiction to surpass the terrible, unpretending pathos of this scene, nor the power with which the mistaken benediction given to the two medical students whom he takes for his daughters, is redeemed from burlesque.

The scepticism as to _virtue_ in this book is fearful, but the love for innocence and beautiful instincts casts a softening tint over the gloom. We never saw any thing sweeter or more natural than the letters of the mother and sisters of Eugene, when they so delightfully sent him the money of which he had been wicked enough to plunder them. These traits of domestic life are given with much grace and delicacy of sentiment.

How few writers can paint _abandon_, without running into exaggeration! and here the task was one of peculiar difficulty. It seemed as if the writer were conscious enough of his power to propose to himself the most difficult task he could undertake.

A respectable reviewer in "Les Deux Mondes" would wish us to think that there is no life in Paris like what Balzac paints; but we can never believe that: evidently it is "too true," though we doubt not there is more redemption than he sees.

But this book was too much for our nerves, and would be, probably, for those of most people accustomed to breathe a healthier atmosphere.

Balzac has been a very fruitful writer, and, as he is fond of jugglers' tricks of every description, and holds nothing earnest or sacred, he is vain of the wonderful celerity with which some of his works, and those quite as good as any, have been written. They seem to have been conceived, composed, and written down with that degree of speed with which it is possible to lay pen to paper. Indeed, we think he cannot be surpassed in the ready and sustained command of his resources. His almost unequalled quickness and fidelity of eye, both as to the disposition of external objects, and the symptoms of human passion, combined with a strong memory, have filled his mind with materials, and we doubt not that if his thoughts could be put into writing with the swiftness of thought, he would give us one of his novels every week in the year.

Here end our praises of Balzac; what he is, as a man, in daily life, we know not. He must originally have had a heart, or he could not read so well the hearts of others; perhaps there are still private ties that touch him. But as a writer, never was the modern Mephistopheles, "the spirit that denieth," more worthily represented than by Balzac.

He combines the spirit of the man of science with that of the amateur collector. He delights to analyze, to classify; there is no anomaly too monstrous, no specimen too revolting, to insure his ardent but passionless scrutiny. But then he has taste and judgment to know what is fair, rare, and exquisite. He takes up such an object carefully, and puts it in a good light. But he has no hatred for what is loathsome, no contempt for what is base, no love for what is lovely, no faith in what is noble. To him there is no virtue and no vice; men and women are more or less finely organized; noble and tender conduct is more agreeable than the reverse, because it argues better health; that is all.

Nor is this from an intellectual calmness, nor from an unusual power of analyzing motives, and penetrating delusions merely; neither is it mere indifference. There is a touch of the demon, also, in Balzac, the cold but gayly familiar demon; and the smile of the amateur yields easily to a sneer, as he delights to show you on what foul juices the fair flower was fed. He is a thorough and willing materialist. The trance of religion is congestion of the brain; the joy of the poet the thrilling of the blood in the rapture of sense; and every good not only rises from, but hastens back into, the jaws of death and nothingness; a rainbow arch above a pestilential chaos!

Thus Balzac, with all his force and fulness of talent, never rises one moment into the region of genius. For genius is, in its nature, positive and creative, and cannot exist where there is no heart to believe in realities. Neither can he have a permanent influence on a nature which is not thoroughly corrupt. He might for a while stagger an ingenuous mind which had not yet thought for itself. But this could not last. His unbelief makes his thought too shallow. He has not that power which a mind, only in part sophisticated, may retain, where the heart still beats warmly, though it sometimes beats amiss. Write, paint, argue, as you will, where there is a sound spot in any human being, he cannot be made to believe that this present bodily frame is more than a temporary condition of his being, though one to which he may have become shamefully enslaved by fault of inheritance, education, or his own carelessness.

Taken in his own way, we know no modern tragedies more powerful than Balzac's "Eugenie Grandet," "Sweet Pea," "Search after the Absolute," "Father Goriot." See there goodness, aspiration, the loveliest instincts, stifled, strangled by fate, in the form of our own brute nature. The fate of the ancient Prometheus was happiness to that of these, who must pay, for ever having believed there was divine fire in heaven, by agonies of despair, and conscious degradation, unknown to those who began by believing man to be the most richly endowed of brutes--no more!

Balzac is admirable in his description of look, tone, gesture. He has a keen sense of whatever is peculiar to the individual. Nothing in modern romance surpasses the death-scene of Father Goriot, the Parisian Lear, in the almost immortal life with which the parental instincts are displayed. And with equal precision and delicacy of shading he will paint the slightest by-play in the manners of some young girl.

"Seraphitus" is merely a specimen of his great powers of intellectual transposition. Amid his delight at the botanical riches of the new and elevated region in which he is travelling, we catch, if only by echo, the hem and chuckle of the French materialist.

No more of him!--We leave him to his suicidal work.

It is cheering to know how great is the influence such a writer as Sue exerts, from his energy of feeling on some subjects of moral interest. It is true that he has also much talent and a various experience of life; but writers who far surpass him here, as we think Balzac does, wanting this heart of faith, have no influence, except merely on the tastes of their readers.

We observe, in a late notice of Sue, that he began to write at quite mature age, at the suggestion of a friend. We should think it was so; that he was by nature intended for a practical man, rather than a writer. He paints all his characters from the practical point of view.

As an observer, when free from exaggeration, he has as good an eye as Balzac, but he is far more rarely thus free, for, in temperament, he is unequal and sometimes muddy. But then he has the heart and faith that Balzac wants, yet is less enslaved by emotion than Sand; therefore he has made more impression on his time and place than either. We refer now to his later works; though his earlier show much talent, yet his progress, both as a writer and thinker, has been so considerable that those of the last few years entirely eclipse his earlier essays.

These latter works are the "Mysteries of Paris," "Matilda," and the "Wandering Jew," which is now in course of publication. In these, he has begun, and is continuing, a crusade against the evils of a corrupt civilization which are inflicting such woes and wrongs upon his contemporaries.

Sue, however, does not merely assail, but would build up. His anatomy is not intended to injure the corpse, or, like that of Balzac, to entertain the intellectual merely. Earnestly he hopes to learn from it the remedies for disease and the conditions of health. Sue is a Socialist. He believes he sees the means by which the heart of mankind may be made to beat with one great hope, one love; and instinct with this thought, his tales of horror are not tragedies.

This is the secret of the deep interest he has awakened in this country, that he shares a hope which is, half unconsciously to herself, stirring all her veins. It is not so warmly outspoken as in other lands, both because no such pervasive ills as yet call loudly for redress, and because private conservatism is here great, in proportion to the absence of authorized despotism. We are not disposed to quarrel with this; it is well for the value of new thoughts to be tested by a good deal of resistance. Opposition, if it does not preclude free discussion, is of use in educating men to know what they want. Only by intelligent men, exercised by thought and tried in virtue, can such measures as Sue proposes be carried out; and when such associates present themselves in sufficient numbers, we have no fear but the cause of association, in its grander forms, will have fair play in America.

As a writer, Sue shows his want of a high kind of imagination by his unshrinking portraiture of physical horrors. We do not believe any man could look upon some things he describes and live. He is very powerful in his description of the workings of animal nature; especially when he speaks of them in animals merely, they have the simplicity of the lower kind with the more full expression of human nature. His pictures of women are of rare excellence, and it is observable that the more simple and pure the character is, the more justice he does to it. This shows that, whatever his career may have been, his heart is uncontaminated. Men he does not describe so well, and fails entirely when he aims at one grand and simple enough for a great moral agent. His conceptions are strong, but in execution he is too melodramatic. Just compare _his_ "Wandering Jew" with that of Beranger. The latter is as diamond compared with charcoal. Then, like all those writers who write in numbers that come out weekly or monthly, he abuses himself and his subject; he often _must_; the arrangement is false and mechanical.

The attitude of Sue is at this moment imposing, as he stands, pen in hand,--this his only weapon against an innumerable host of foes,--the champion of poverty, innocence, and humanity, against superstition, selfishness, and prejudice. When his works are forgotten,--and for all their strong points and brilliant decorations, they may ere long be forgotten,--still the writer's name shall be held in imperishable honor as the teacher of the ignorant, the guardian of the weak, a true tribune for the people of his own time.

One of the most unexceptionable and attractive writers of modern France is De Vigny. His life has been passed in the army; but many years of peace have given him time for literary culture, while his acquaintance with the traditions of the army, from the days of its dramatic achievements under Bonaparte, supply the finest materials both for narrative and reflection. His tales are written with infinite grace, refined sensibility, and a dignified view. His treatment of a subject shows that closeness of grasp and clearness of sight which are rarely attained by one who is not at home in active as well as thoughtful life. He has much penetration, too, and has touched some of the most delicate springs of human action. His works have been written in hours of leisure; this has diminished their number, but given him many advantages over the thousands of professional writers that fill the coffee-houses of Paris by day, and its garrets by night. We wish he were more read here in the original; with him would be found good French, and the manners, thoughts, and feelings of a cosmopolitan gentleman.

To sum up this imperfect account of the merits of these Novelists: I see De Vigny, a retiring figure, the gentleman, the solitary thinker, but, in his way, the efficient foe of false honor and superstitious prejudice; Balzac is the heartless surgeon, probing the wounds and describing the delirium of suffering men for the amusement of his students; Sue, a bold and glittering crusader, with endless ballads jingling in the silence of the night before the battle. They are all much right and a good deal wrong; for instance, all who would lay down their lives for the sake of truth, yet let their virtuous characters practise stratagems, falsehood, and violence; in fact, do evil for the sake of good. They still show this taint of the old regime, and no wonder! La belle France has worn rouge so long that the purest mountain air will not, at once, or soon, restore the natural hues to her complexion. But they are fine figures, and all ruled by the onward spirit of the time. Led by that spirit, I see them moving on the troubled waters; they do not sink, and I trust they will find their way to the coasts where the new era will introduce new methods, in a spirit of nobler activity, wiser patience, and holier faith, than the world has yet seen.

Will Balzac also see that shore, or has he only broken away the bars that hindered others from setting sail? We do not know. When we read an expression of such lovely innocence as the letter of the little country maidens to their Parisian brother, (in Father Goriot,) we hope; but presently we see him sneering behind the mask, and we fear. Let Frenchmen speak to this question. They know best what disadvantages a Frenchman suffers under, and whether it is possible Balzac be still alive, except in his eyes. Those, we know, are quite alive.

To read these, or any foreign works fairly, the reader must understand the national circumstances under which they were written. To use them worthily, he must know how to interpret them for the use of the universe.

THE NEW SCIENCE, OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF MESMERISM OR ANIMAL MAGNETISM.[21]

Man is always trying to get charts and directions for the super-sensual element in which he finds himself involuntarily moving. Sometimes, indeed, for long periods, a life of continual activity in supplying bodily wants or warding off bodily dangers will make him inattentive to the circumstances of this other life. Then, in an interval of leisure, he will start to find himself pervaded by the power of this more subtle and searching energy, and will turn his thoughts, with new force, to scrutinize its nature and its promises.

At such times a corps is formed of workmen, furnished with various implements for the work. Some collect facts from which they hope to build up a theory; others propose theories by whose light they hope to detect valuable facts; a large number are engaged in circulating reports of these labors; a larger in attempting to prove them invalid and absurd. These last are of some use by shaking the canker-worms from the trees; all are of use in elucidating truth.

Such a course of study has the civilized world been engaged in for some years back with regard to what is called Animal Magnetism. We say the civilized world, because, though a large portion of the learned and intellectual, to say nothing of the thoughtless and the prejudiced, view such researches as folly, yet we believe that those prescient souls, those minds more deeply alive, which are the life of this and the parents of the next era, all, more or less, consciously or unconsciously, share the belief in such an agent as is understood by the largest definition of animal magnetism; that is, a means by which influence and thought may be communicated from one being to another, independent of the usual organs, and with a completeness and precision rarely attained through these.

For ourselves, since we became conscious at all of our connection with the two forms of being called the spiritual and material, we have perceived the existence of such an agent, and should have no doubts on the subject, if we had never heard one human voice in correspondent testimony with our perceptions. The reality of this agent we know, have tested some of its phenomena, but of its law and its analysis find ourselves nearly as ignorant as in earliest childhood. And we must confess that the best writers we have read seem to us about equally ignorant. We derive pleasure and profit in very unequal degrees from their statements, in proportion to their candor, clearness of perception, severity of judgment, and largeness of view. If they possess these elements of wisdom, their statements are valuable as affording materials for the true theory; but theories proposed by them affect us, as yet, only as partially sustained hypotheses. Too many among them are stained by faults which must prevent their coming to any valuable results, sanguine haste, jealous vanity, a lack of that profound devotion which alone can win Truth from her cold well, careless classification, abrupt generalizations. We see, as yet, no writer great enough for the patient investigation, in a spirit liberal yet severely true, which the subject demands. We see no man of Shakspearian, Newtonian incapability of deceiving himself or others.

However, no such man is needed, and we believe that it is pure democracy to rejoice that, in this department as in others, it is no longer some one great genius that concentrates within himself the vital energy of his time. It is many working together who do the work. The waters spring up in every direction, as little rills, each of which performs its part. We see a movement corresponding with this in the region of exact science, and we have no doubt that in the course of fifty years a new spiritual circulation will be comprehended as clearly as the circulation of the blood is now.

In metaphysics, in phrenology, in animal magnetism, in electricity, in chemistry, the tendency is the same, even when conclusions seem most dissonant. The mind presses nearer home to the seat of consciousness the more intimate law and rule of life, and old limits, become fluid beneath the fire of thought. We are learning much, and it will be a grand music, that shall be played on this organ of many pipes.

With regard to Mr. Grimes's book, in the first place, we do not possess sufficient knowledge of the subject to criticise it thoroughly; and secondly, if we did, it could not be done in narrow limits. To us his classification is unsatisfactory, his theory inadequate, his point of view uncongenial. We disapprove of the spirit in which he criticises other disciples in this science, who have, we believe, made some good observations, with many failures, though, like himself, they do not hold themselves sufficiently lowly as disciples. For we do not believe there is any man, _yet_, who is entitled to give himself the air of having taken a degree on this subject. We do not want the tone of qualification or mincing apology. We want no mock modesty, but its reality, which is the almost sure attendant on greatness. What a lesson it would be for this country if a body of men could be at work together in that harmony which would not fail to ensue on a _disinterested_ love of discovering truth, and with that patience and exactness in experiment without which no machine was ever invented worthy a patent! The most superficial, go-ahead, hit-or-miss American knows that no machine was ever perfected without this patience and exactness; and let no one hope to achieve victories in the realm of mind at a cheaper rate than in that of matter.

In speaking thus of Mr. Grimes's book, we can still cordially recommend it to the perusal of our readers. Its statements are full and sincere. The writer has abilities which only need to be used with more thoroughness and a higher aim to guide him to valuable attainments.

In this connection we will relate a passage from personal experience, to us powerfully expressive of the nature of this higher agent in the intercourse of minds.

Some years ago I went, unexpectedly, into a house where a blind girl, thought at that time to have attained an extraordinary degree of clairvoyance, lay in a trance of somnambulism. I was not invited there, nor known to the party, but accompanied a gentleman who was.

The somnambulist was in a very happy state. On her lips was the satisfied smile, and her features expressed the gentle elevation incident to the state. At that time I had never seen any one in it, and had formed no image or opinion on the subject. I was agreeably impressed by the somnambulist, but on listening to the details of her observations on a distant place, I thought she had really no vision, but was merely led or impressed by the mind of the person who held her hand.

After a while I was beckoned forward, and my hand given to the blind girl. The latter instantly dropped it with an expression of pain, and complained that she should have been brought in contact with a person so sick, and suffering at that moment under violent nervous headache. This really was the case, but no one present could have been aware of it.

After a while the somnambulist seemed penitent and troubled. She asked again for my hand which she had rejected, and, while holding it, attempted to magnetize the sufferer. She seemed touched by profound pity, spoke most intelligently of the disorder of health and its causes, and gave advice, which, if followed at that time, I have every reason to believe would have remedied the ill.

Not only the persons present, but the person advised also, had no adequate idea then of the extent to which health was affected, nor saw fully, till some time after, the justice of what was said by the somnambulist. There is every reason to believe that neither she, nor the persons who had the care of her, knew even the name of the person whom she so affectionately wished to help.

Several years after, in visiting an asylum for the blind, I saw this same girl seated there. She was no longer a somnambulist, though, from a nervous disease, very susceptible to magnetic influences. I went to her among a crowd of strangers, and shook hands with her as several others had done. I then asked, "Do you not not know me?" She answered, "No." "Do you not remember ever to have met me?" She tried to recollect, but still said, "No." I then addressed a few remarks to her about her situation there, but she seemed preoccupied, and, while I turned to speak with some one else, wrote with a pencil these words, which she gave me at parting:--

"The ills that Heaven decrees
The brave with courage bear."

Others may explain this as they will; to me it was a token that the same affinity that had acted before, gave the same knowledge; for the writer was at the time ill in the same way as before. It also seemed to indicate that the somnambulic trance was only a form of the higher development, the sensibility to more subtle influences--in the terms of Mr. Grimes, a susceptibility to etherium. The blind girl perhaps never knew who I was, but saw my true state more clearly than any other person did, and I have kept those pencilled lines, written in the stiff, round character proper to the blind, as a talisman of "Credenciveness," as the book before me styles it. Credulity as the world at large does, and, to my own mind, as one of the clews granted, during this earthly life, to the mysteries of future states of being, and more rapid and complete modes of intercourse between mind and mind.

DEUTSCHE SCHNELLPOST.[22]

The publishers of this interesting and spirited journal have, this year, begun to issue a weekly paper in addition to their former arrangement. We regret not to have been able earlier to take some notice of their prospectus, but an outline of it will be new to most of our readers.

Their journal has hitherto been intended for German readers in this country, and has been devoted to topics of European interest, but by the addition of the Weekly, it hopes to discuss with some fulness those of American interest also; thus becoming "an organ of communication between Germans of the old and new home, as to their wants, interests, and thoughts." These judicious remarks follow:--

"The editors do not coincide with those who believe it the vocation of the immigrant German, by systematic separation from the people who offer him a new home, by voluntary withdrawal from the unaccustomed, and, perhaps, for him too vehement stream of their life, in a word, by obstinate adhesion to the old, to keep inviolate the stamp of his nationality.

"Rather is it their faith that it should be the most earnest desire of the immigrant, not merely to appropriate in form, but to _deserve_ the rights of a citizen here--rights which we confide in the healthy mind of the nation to sustain him in, all fanatical opposition to the contrary notwithstanding. And he must deserve them by becoming an American, not merely in name, but in deed, not merely by assuming claims, but by appreciating duties.

"But while we renounce this narrow and one-sided isolation, desiring to integrate ourselves, fairly and truly, with the great family that receives us to its hospitality, we will hold so much the more firmly to the higher traits of our own race. We hold to the noble jewel of our native tongue; the memories of our nation's ancient glory; the sympathy with its future, as yet only glimmering in the dusk; our old, true, domestic manners; dear inherited customs, that give to the tranquillities of home their sanctity--to the intercourse between men a fresh, glad life.

"So much for our position in general."

They promise, as to American affairs, "to be just as far as in them lies, and independent, certainly."

We think the tone of these remarks truly honorable and right-minded. It is such a tone that each division of our adopted citizens needs to hear from those of their compatriots able to guide and enlighten them. We do want that each nation should preserve what is valuable in its parent stock. We want all the elements for the new people of the new world. We want the prudence, the honor, the practical skill of the English; the fun, the affectionateness, the generosity of the Irish; the vivacity, the grace, the quick intelligence of the French; the thorough honesty, the capacity for philosophic view, and deep enthusiasm of the German Biedermann; the shrewdness and romance of the Scotch,--but we want none of their prejudices. We want the healthy seed to develop itself into a different plant in the new climate. We have reason to hope a new and generous race, where the Italian meets the German, the Swede, the Jew. Let nothing be obliterated, but all be regenerated; let each leader say in like manner to his band. Apply the old loyalty to a study of new duties. Examine yourself whether you are worthy of the new rights so freely bestowed upon you, and recognize that only intelligent action, and not mere bodily presence, can make you really a citizen on any soil. It is a glorious boon offered you to be a founder of the new dynasty in the new world; but it would have been better for you to have died a thousand deaths beneath the factory wheels of England, or in the prisons of Russia, than to sell this great privilege for selfish or servile ends. Here each man has before him the choice of Esau--each may defraud a long succession of souls of their princely inheritance.

Do those whose bodies were born upon this soil reject you, and claim for themselves the name of natives? You may be natives, in another sort, for the soul may be re-born here. Cast for yourselves a new nativity, and invoke the starry influences that do not fail to shine into the life of a good man, whose heart is kept open daily to truth in every new form, whose heart is strengthened by a desire to do his duty valiantly to every brother of the human family. Offer upon the soil a libation of worthy feelings in gratitude for the bread it so willingly yields you, and it is true that the "healthy mind of the nation" cannot long fail to greet you with joy, and hail your endowment with civic rights.

We must think there is a deep root, in fact, for the late bitter expressions of prejudice, however unworthy the mode of exhibiting them, against the foreign element in our population. We want all this new blood, but we want it purified, assimilated, or it will take all form of comeliness from the growing nation. Our country is a willing foster mother, but her children need wise tutors to prevent them from playing, willingly or unwillingly, the viper's part.

There is a little poem in the Schnellpost, by Moritz Hartmann, called the "Three,"--which would be a forcible appeal, if any were needed, in behalf of all who are exiled from their native soil. We translate it into prose, and this will not spoil it, as its poetry lies in the situation.

"In a tavern of Hungary are sitting together Three who have taken refuge there from storm and darkness--in Hungary, where the wind of chance drives together the children of many a land.

"Their eyes glow with fires of various light; their locks are unlike in their flow; but their hearts--their wounded hearts--are urns filled with the tears of a common grief.

"One cries, 'Silent companions! Shall we have no toast to cheer our meeting? I offer you one which you cannot fail to pledge--Freedom and greatness to the Fatherland!

"'To the fatherland! But I am one that knows not where is his; I am a Gypsy; my fatherland lies in the realm of tradition--in the mournful tone of the violin swelled by grief and storm.

"'I pass musing over heath and moor, and think of my painful losses. Yet long since was I weaned from desire of a home, and think of Egypt but as the cymbal sounds.'

"The second says, 'This toast of fatherland I will not drink; mine own shame should I pledge. For the seed of Jacob flies like the dried leaf, and takes no root in the dust of slavery.'

"The lips of the third seem frozen at the edge of his goblet. He asks himself in silence, 'Shall _I_ drink to the fatherland? Lives Poland yet, or is all life departed, and am I, like these, a motherless son?'"

To those and others who, if they still had homes, could not live there, without starving body and soul, may our land be a fatherland; and may they seek and learn to act as children in a father's house!

A foreign correspondent of the Schnellpost, having, it seems, been reproved by some friends on the safe side of the water for the violence of his attack on crowned heads, and other dilettanti, defends himself with great spirit, and argues his case well from his own point of view. We do not agree with him as to the use of methods, but cannot fail to sympathize in his feeling.

Anecdotes of Russian proceedings towards delinquents are well associated with one anecdote quoted of Peter, who yet was truly the Great. In a foreign city, seeing the gallows, he asked the use of that three-cornered thing. Being told, to hang people on, he requested that one might be hung for him, directly. Being told this, unfortunately, could not be done, as there was no criminal under sentence, he desired that one of his own retinue might be made use of. Probably he did this with no further thought than the Empress Catharine bestowed, on having a ship of the line blown up, as a model for the painter who was to adorn her palace with pictures of naval battles. Disregard for human life and human happiness is not confined to the Russian snows, or the eastern hemisphere; it may be found on every side, though, indeed, not on a scale so imperial.

OLIVER CROMWELL.[23]

A long expectation is rewarded at last by the appearance of this book. We cannot wonder that it should have been long, when Mr. Carlyle shows us what a world of ill-arranged and almost worthless materials he has had to wade through before achieving any possibility of order and harmony for his narrative.

The method which he has chosen of letting the letters and speeches of Cromwell tell the story when possible, only himself doing what is needful to throw light where it is most wanted and fill up gaps, is an excellent one. Mr. Carlyle, indeed, is a most peremptory showman, and with each slide of his magic lantern informs us not only of what is necessary to enable us to understand it, but _how_ we must look at it, under peril of being ranked as "imbeciles," "canting sceptics," "disgusting rose-water philanthropists," and the like. And aware of his power of tacking a nickname or ludicrous picture to any one who refuses to obey, we might perhaps feel ourselves, if in his neighborhood, under such constraint and fear of deadly laughter, as to lose the benefit of having under our eye to form our judgment upon the same materials on which he formed his.

But the ocean separates us, and the showman has his own audience of despised victims, or scarce less despised pupils; and we need not fear to be handed down to posterity as "a little gentleman in a gray coat" "shrieking" unutterable "imbecilities," or with the like damnatory affixes, when we profess that, having read the book, and read the letters and speeches thus far, we cannot submit to the showman's explanation of the lantern, but must, more than ever, stick to the old "Philistine," "Dilettante," "Imbecile," and what not view of the character of Cromwell.

We all know that to Mr. Carlyle greatness is well nigh synonymous with virtue, and that he has shown himself a firm believer in Providence by receiving the men of destiny as always entitled to reverence. Sometimes a great success has followed the portraits painted by him in the light of such faith, as with regard to Mahomet, for instance. The natural autocrat is his delight, and in such pictures as that of the monk in "Past and Present," where the geniuses of artist and subject coincide, the result is no less delightful for us.

But Mr. Carlyle reminds us of the man in a certain parish who had always looked up to one of its squires as a secure and blameless idol, and one day in church, when the minister asked "all who felt in concern for their souls to rise," looked to the idol and seeing him retain his seat, (asleep perchance!) sat still also. One of his friends asking him afterwards how he could refuse to answer such an appeal, he replied, "he thought it safest to stay with the squire."

Mr. Carlyle's squires are all Heaven's justices of peace or war, (usually the latter;) they are beings of true energy and genius, and so far, as he describes them, "genuine men." But in doubtful cases, where the doubt is between them and principles, he will insist that the men must be in the right. On such occasions he favors us with such doctrine as the following, which we confess we had the weakness to read with "sibylline execration" and extreme disgust.

Speaking of Cromwell's course in Ireland:--

"Oliver's proceedings here have been the theme of much loud criticism, sibylline execration, into which it is not our plan to enter at present. We shall give these fifteen letters of his in a mass, and without any commentary whatever. To those who think that a land overrun with sanguinary quacks can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these letters must be very horrible. Terrible surgery this; but _is_ it surgery and judgment, or atrocious murder merely? This is a question which should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in God's judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of surgery,--which, in fact, is this editor's case too! Every idle lie and piece of empty bluster this editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has to shudder at it; has to think, 'Thou, idle bluster, not true, thou also art shutting men's minds against God's fact; thou wilt issue as a cleft crown to some poor man some day; thou also wilt have to take shelter in bogs, whither cavalry cannot follow!' But in Oliver's time, as I say, there was still belief in the judgments of God; in Oliver's time, there was yet no distracted jargon of 'abolishing capital punishments,' of Jean-Jacques philanthropy, and universal rose-water in this world still so full of sin. Men's notion was, not for abolishing punishments, but for making laws just. God the Maker's laws, they considered, had not yet got the punishment abolished from them! Men had a notion that the difference between good and evil was still considerable--equal to the difference between heaven and hell. It was a true notion, which all men yet saw, and felt, in all fibres of their existence, to be true. Only in late decadent generations, fast hastening toward radical change or final perdition, can such indiscriminate mashing up of good and evil into one universal patent treacle, and most unmedical electuary, of Rousseau sentimentalism, universal pardon and benevolence, with dinner and drink and one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very poisonous, as sweet as it is, and very nauseous; of which Oliver, happier than we, had not yet heard the slightest intimation even in dreams.

* * * * *

"In fact, Oliver's dialect is rude and obsolete; the phrases of Oliver, to him solemn on the perilous battle field as voices of God, have become to us most mournful when spouted as frothy cant from Exeter Hall. The reader has, all along, to make steady allowance for that. And on the whole, clear recognition will be difficult for him. To a poor slumberous canting age, mumbling to itself every where, Peace, peace, when there is no peace,--such a phenomena as Oliver, in Ireland or elsewhere, is not the most recognizable in all its meanings. But it waits there for recognition, and can wait an age or two. The memory of Oliver Cromwell, as I count, has a good many centuries in it yet; and ages of very varied complexion to apply to, before all end. My reader, in this passage and others, shall make of it what he can.

"But certainly, at lowest, here is a set of military despatches of the most unexampled nature! Most rough, unkempt; shaggy as the Numidian lion. A style rugged as crags; coarse, drossy: yet with a meaning in it, an energy, a depth; pouring on like a fire torrent; perennial _fire_ of it visible athwart all drosses and defacements; not uninteresting to see! This man has come into distracted Ireland with a God's truth in the heart of him, though an unexpected one; the first such man they have seen for a great while indeed. He carries acts of Parliament, laws of earth and heaven, in one hand; drawn sword in the other. He addresses the bewildered Irish populations, the black ravening coil of sanguinary blustering individuals at Tredah and elsewhere: 'Sanguinary, blustering individuals, whose word is grown worthless as the barking of dogs; whose very thought is false, representing no fact, but the contrary of fact--behold, I am come to speak and to do the truth among you. Here are acts in Parliament, methods of regulation and veracity, emblems the nearest we poor Puritans could make them of God's law-book, to which it is and shall be our perpetual effort to make them correspond nearer and nearer. Obey them, help us to perfect them, be peaceable and true under them, it shall be well with you. Refuse to obey them, I will not let you continue living! As articulate speaking veracious orderly men, not as a blustering, murderous kennel of dogs run rabid, shall you continue in this earth. Choose!' They chose to disbelieve him; could not understand that he, more than the others, meant any truth or justice to them. They rejected his summons and terms at Tredah; he stormed the place; and, according to his promise, put every man of the garrison to death. His own soldiers are forbidden to plunder, by paper proclamation; and in ropes of authentic hemp, they are hanged when they do it. To Wexford garrison, the like terms as at Tredah; and, failing these, the like storm. Here is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster this, and false jargon scattering itself to the winds; what this man speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this man is accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first king's face poor Ireland ever saw; the first friend's face, _little as it recognizes him_--poor Ireland!"

Yes, Cromwell had force and sagacity to get that done which he had resolved to get done; and this is the whole truth about your admiration, Mr. Carlyle. Accordingly, at Drogheda quoth Cromwell,--

"I believe we put to sword the whole number of the defendants. * * Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword about two thousand men, divers of the officers and soldiers being fled over the bridge into the other part of the town; and where about one hundred of them possessed St. Peter's Church, steeple, &c. These, being summoned to yield to mercy, refused. Whereupon I ordered the steeple of St. Peter's Church to be fired; when one of them was heard to say, in the midst of the flames, 'God confound me! I burn, I burn!'

"I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future. Which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret. * * This hath been an exceeding great mercy."

Certainly one not of the rose-water or treacle kind. Mr. Carlyle says such measures "cut to the heart of the war," and brought peace. Was there _then_ no crying of Peace, Peace, when there was no peace? Ask the Irish peasantry why they mark that period with the solemn phrase of "Cromwell's Curse!"

For ourselves, though aware of the mistakes and errors in particulars that must occur, we believe the summing up of a man's character in the verdict of his time, is likely to be correct. We believe that Cromwell was "a curse," as much as a blessing, in these acts of his. We believe him ruthless, ambitious, half a hypocrite, (few men have courage or want of soul to bear being wholly so,) and we think it is rather too bad to rave at us in our time for canting, and then hold up the prince of canters for our reverence in his "dimly seen nobleness." Dimly, indeed, despite the rhetoric and satire of Mr. Carlyle!

In previous instances where Mr. Carlyle has acted out his predeterminations as to the study of a character, we have seen circumstances favor him, at least sometimes. There were fine moments, fine lights upon the character that he would seize upon. But here the facts look just as they always have. He indeed ascertains that the Cromwell family were not mere brewers or plebeians, but "substantial gentry," and that there is not the least ground for the common notion that Cromwell lived at any time a dissolute life. But with the exception of these emendations, still the history looks as of old. We see a man of strong and wise mind, educated by the pressure of great occasions to station of command; we see him wearing the religious garb which was the custom of the times, and even preaching to himself as well as to others--for well can we imagine that his courage and his pride would have fallen without keeping up the illusion; but we never see Heaven answering his invocations in any way that can interfere with the rise of his fortunes or the accomplishment of his plans. To ourselves, the tone of these religious holdings-forth is sufficiently expressive; they all ring hollow; we have never read any thing of the sort more repulsive to us than the letter to Mr. Hammond, which Mr. Carlyle thinks such a noble contrast to the impiety of the present time. Indeed, we cannot recover from our surprise at Mr. Carlyle's liking these letters; his predetermination must have been strong indeed. Again, we see Cromwell ruling with the strong arm, and carrying the spirit of monarchy to an excess which no Stuart could surpass. Cromwell, indeed, is wise, and the king he had punished with death is foolish; Charles is faithless, and Cromwell crafty; we see no other difference. Cromwell does not, in power, abide by the principles that led him to it; and we can't help--so rose-water imbecile are we!--admiring those who do: one Lafayette, for instance--poor chevalier so despised by Mr. Carlyle--for abiding by his principles, though impracticable, more than Louis Philippe, who laid them aside, so far as necessary, "to secure peace to the kingdom;" and to us it looks black for one who kills kings to grow to be more kingly than a king.