Chapter M: The Coffee Club

No. III

“At last he is as welcome as a storm; he that is abroad shelters himself from it, and he that is at home shuts the door. If he intrudes himself yet, some with their jeering tongues give him many a gird, but his brazen impudence feels nothing; and let him be armed on free-scot with the pot and the pipe, he will give them leave to shoot their flouts at him till they be weary.”

_Fuller’s Profane State._

Summer, with its transforming influence upon all things natural and artificial, has come, and the Coffee Club feels somewhat of its power. We introduced you, reader, to our room in the depth of winter, we welcomed you with a blazing hearth and the cheerful light of an astral, and our mystic tripod lustily bore witness to the strife of the hostile elements. But now the aspect of the room and the temper of its occupants is changed. A solitary taper with _all_ its light, can scarce effect a dim obscure--the thick warm carpet is superseded by a flimsier texture of straw--the point of concentration is transferred from the glowing fire to the open window--the center-table is drawn back and relieved from its superincumbent load, that the eye may not be oppressed with a sense of heaviness--in every chair you find a lazy pillow, and even the sofa which would once contain all four, will scarce suffice for the extended length of Apple Dumpling--our coffee simmers over the sickly flame of a spirit lamp, and is quaffed in cooler draughts, and from comparatively tiny cups.

The temper of its occupants is likewise changed. That equable hilarity which seldom rose to jollity and _never_ sank below cheerfulness, is gone; and its place is ill supplied by a fitful state of noisy mirth and moody silence. Tristo is alternately more melancholy and less so--Nescio, more entirely sensual, or more acutely intellectual, as the whim seizes him--Pulito is absorbed in attention to earthly nymphs one week, and shuts himself up in his room with the heaven-born muses the next--and Apple, who formerly, like some auxiliary verbs, had but one _mood_, is now variable through the whole paradigm. The disturbing influence of warm weather and bewitching moonlight is also perceptible in the irregularity of our meetings. But few, very few times have we been together this term, and then we have employed ourselves in the most random conversation. Even to-night we have but an unpromising prospect before us. Pulito and Apple are not here, and Tristo and myself have hitherto kept our thoughts to ourselves with most unsocial chariness. But hark! Pulito’s ‘light fantastic toe’ is on the stairs, and he must say _something_ as he enters.

_Pulito._ “Good evening, gentlemen. You certainly have the true atrabilious aspect; ’twould spoil my face for a week to sit in close proximity with two such melancholy phizes. With your leave, therefore, Messieurs, I will take a cup, adjust my flowing locks, and be off. What beautiful little acorn-goblets you have here, Nescio, and then the delicacy of the beverage, so nicely adapted to the season. You have a rare taste in these matters, Quod.”

_Tristo._ “Ah! Pulito, you are always the same careless fellow, and ’twere vain to hope for any thing else from you; but cannot you sit down for one evening and have a long and sober talk. You know some of us leave town soon, and we may not have another opportunity.”

_Pulito._ “Indeed, Tristo, I am sorry to disappoint you; but _this_ evening I have an engagement from which I really cannot get excused; the rest of the term I am entirely at your service.”

_Nescio._ “I’ll wager any thing from a pin’s head to ‘this great globe itself’ that there’s a lady in the case.”

_Pulito._ “Weel, an there be, gude Maister Quod.”

_Nescio._ “Why you remember your boastful resolution to eschew all connection with any thing more substantial than ‘Fancy’s daughters three,’ during the hot weather.”

_Pulito._ “And whether these be ‘Faith, Hope and Charity,’ or ‘Wine, Women and Coxcombry,’ depends very much upon the _fancier_’s temperament.”

_Tristo._ “I am afraid, my dear Pulito, that your aspirations after learning are becoming less ardent; and unless you are more earnest, your poetic ambition will fain be contented with being laureate of the Coffee Club.”

_Pulito._ “‘What is learning but a cloak-bag of books, cumbersome for a gentleman to carry? and the muses fit to make wives for farmers’ sons?’ What Fuller, in his ‘degenerous gentleman’ says in irony, I would adopt in sober earnest.”

_Nescio._ “Well, I perceive we shall get nothing from you to-night, so you may go. But first tell us if you have seen any thing of Apple.”

_Pulito._ “Indeed, I have, and bring quite a message from him, which, but for your suggestion, I should have forgotten. By my troth, in my head, ‘_dies truditur die_,’--one idea thrusts out another. But for the story--I met Apple walking most abstractedly with the huge roll of his autobiography under his arm. When I asked him what he was thinking about, he obstinately confined his information to the mysterious remark that he was ‘_coming up_’ this evening. As soon, however, as he discovered that I did not intend to be there, he unfolded his whole purpose--under an express injunction of secrecy, which I ought to keep, and which I will keep--though I will give you an inkling of it, as it may afford you some sport. He will probably appear particularly brilliant, and converse more like himself, his peculiar self. Verb. sat sap. Make fun of him if you can, for I owe him a grudge for a spiteful pun, which he made on a lady’s name. However, my masters, after I have given my neck-kerchief the blameless tie, and curled my hair with the twist extatic, I will leave you to your dull coffee, and bask me in the warmth of thy sunny eyes, oh beautiful *---- *----.”

Here Pulito made his exit, singing “di tutti palpiti,” with an air of Cox-comical affectation, half assumed, half natural.

_Tristo._ “A handsome fellow, and a bright. But the day will come when a strong mind, and a well-stored memory, will be worth more than the vanished rapture of a woman’s smile. What a pity youth can never temper pleasure with----, hist! that stumbling step sounds like Apple’s.”

_Nescio._ “’Tis his,--let’s slip into the bed-room and see what Dumpling will do.”

_Tristo._ “Agreed; I promise myself materiel for laughter.”

[Enter _Apple_, with a look of pleased importance, and a mouth apparently ready to discharge a witticism.] “Ha! Pulito! Tristo! Quod! What, not a soul here but myself, who am _solus_, he! he! pretty good! I’ll lay that by, and use it when they come. What an ass that Tristo must be, never to laugh at my puns. However, he cannot help himself to-night. I have various good things, aside from puns. If the conversation turns upon wit, I shall say, ‘A witty sentence should be like a scorpion, the sting in the tail, but should not, like a scorpion, sting itself to death!’ If Tristo goes to rating me for smoking, I shall say, ‘A cigar is the _summum bonum_, pity its _fumes_ are not _per_fumes!’ If Nescio says, ‘I am your host’--‘Yes,’ quoth I, ‘and in yourself an _host_.’ That stone will kill two birds; it is at once a pun and a compliment. Ah me! what is the literary world coming to? They all seem bent upon being dull, and the greatest of scriptorial (scriptural?) sins is to say a witty thing. Volumes of poetry and philosophy and oratory and the like come forth, and never a bit of fun in ’em all. Now in my view even a sermon would be vastly better, if the preacher, especially in the application, would discharge at the hearer a few judicious puns of a devotional _cast_. Bless me! where--where--confusion worse confounded! where are my cigars? I can never shine without them. I should be like Sampson shorn of his locks. I shall have to go by a dozen colleges to ----’s to get some. Well! ‘_leve fit, quod bene fertur_,’ ‘that’s a light fit, which is well borne.’ Ha, ha, good! remember that.”

As Apple leaves the room, Quod and Tristo, bursting with laughter, issue from their _latebræ_.

_Tristo._ “Bravo, Dumpling, bravo.”

_Nescio._ “Capital! capital! What if we appear to have just come in when he returns, and give him a chance to be witty--ha, ha!”

_Tristo._ “Constat--it is a covenant. But here he comes.”

[Enter Apple, puffing with haste, a bunch of cigars in his hand, and a lighted one in his mouth.]

_Apple_, (amazed.) “What! you here.”

_Tristo_ and _Quod_. “Yes, we’ve just stept in. You, I suppose, didn’t think there was a soul here.”

_Apple_, (chuckling.) “No, faith: I expected to be _solus_, myself!”

_Quod._ “Why, Dumpling, you are witty to-night.”

_Apple._ “A witty sentence should be like a scorpion, the sting in the tail, but should not, like a scorpion, sting itself to death, ha! ha!”

_Tristo._ “Excellent! but do, dear Apple, fling away your vile cigars.”

_Apple_, (winking.) “A cigar, my dear fellow, is the _summum bonum_--pity its _fumes_ are not _per_fumes.”

_Tristo._ “Your wit should not hinder your politeness. I dislike them, and I am your host.”

_Apple._ “Yes, and in yourself an _host_, ha! ha!”

_Nescio._ “Why, Apple, where on earth do you get so many good things?”

_Apple_, (vainly.) “Oh! I don’t know: I believe it comes natural--impromptus.”

_Nescio._ “Impromptus! Ha! Ha! Why, Apple, we were in the bed-room here, when you came in before, and heard you practising on your impromptus!”

_Apple_, (coloring with shame, vexation, and alarm.) “How--how--what, you did, did you? Pretty good hoax, though, wasn’t it? Don’t tell the fellows ’twas _your_ hoax. But being Dumpling, I’ve got the _dumps_, ha! ha! so I think I’ll go home and write on my autobiography.”

_Tristo._ “Do so, and don’t forget this chapter.”

(Exit Apple with a hang-dog air.)

_Tristo._ “Incorrigible!”

_Nescio._ “Utterly! ha! ha! it’s worth a dozen comedies.”

* * * * *

As if by a secret and common impulse, the laugh and jest ceased, and both became silent. Nescio sat by one window, emitting from a fragrant Havana languid and infrequent puffs. His varying countenance expressed a train of thoughts as motley as his mind, where the weighty and the sober were linked and mingled with the light and the ludicrous, and feelings and reflections came trooping by, robed in a livery of serio-comic strangeness. He was thinking of the mystic links that bind together the seen and the unseen--of the glorious, expansive, elastic mind--that ‘_sine fine fines_’--of the invisible shadings of the mental into the passionate, and of the passionate into the corporeal--of the attenuated conduits that bear reciprocally between the mind and body a gush of joy or a thrill of anguish. He turned from the puzzling maze, and by no unnatural diversion, his thoughts passed to some of the most wonderful emanations from this mysterious source--the productions of the ‘world’s sole demigod’--Ariel and Caliban and Puck--the sisters three, and Titania with her faery train--and Falstaff, and the good king Malcolm, and the maddened Lear--poor, shattered Hamlet, and Othello ‘the dusky Moor,’

----“Whose hand,
Like the base Judæan, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe.”

Then came up in re-awakened life the fond musings of his own early boyhood, and he was pleased with the contemplation, all groundless and fruitless as they were, for he smiled at his former folly, and thought himself too wise to be again deceived.

They had crowded one after another upon ‘Fancy’s ardent eye,’ bright and incessant like waves from the sun; and as he thought of their number and their futility, his mind was neither spent with weariness, nor darkened by regret. His feelings were still as vigorous and varied, as they were, before they went forth in quest of happiness and returned without even an olive-branch, as an earnest of security and peace. He had been thus vibrating between thought and revery for perhaps an hour, when he started from his waking dream, and remembered that he was not alone. Tristo was sitting at the other window, with averted face and eyes gazing on vacancy, while in his hand lay an open volume of the sensitive and melancholy Cowper. Nescio, I grieve to say it, is not always felicitous in his address. He lacks that quick tact, which may be denominated an instinctive sense of present propriety. He felt a reaction in himself, and wished to confirm the dominion of mirth in his own breast, by awakening it in that of others. He laid his hand on Tristo’s shoulder, and giving him a friendly shake, said “Wake up, man, what are you dreaming of? Come, sing us a song, _pour passer le temps_. Pray Heaven, no pretty girl has crossed your line of vision. If so, be not thou cast down--I can give you a charm, a very talisman to gain her, in the whiff of a cigar, _ut ait Apple_. Sigh and flatter, sit up late o’ nights so as to appear pale--seem for a time to prefer another, and then assure her that your heart is, was and will be all, all her own. In that moment of delighted conviction press hard--the fort is yours.” Tristo was too sad to be angry. He merely replied while his lip quivered with emotion--“Nescio, you know not how you wound me.”

_Nescio._ “Indeed, indeed, I did not mean it, you _know_ I _could_ not. But why should you be always so gloomy? It vexes me to see you thus. Why should you not smile more often and more willingly?”

_Tristo._ “Do I not smile?”

_Nescio._ “O such a smile! ’tis worse than tears--’tis like the forced laugh in the play. ‘_Male qui mihi volunt, sic rideant._’ But why should your thoughts be so dark amidst the glittering activity of life?”

_Tristo._ “And why should they not be _entirely_ dark? The breath of this vast world sounds in my ear as the up-going of one deep and universal sigh, and can the thought be other than a thought of pain. My grief is not for myself alone, though that were enough. But where is the man who is happy at all? unless, indeed, it be the happiness of _apathy_. Where is the man of open heart and aspiring mind, whose plans succeed even in the outline, or if the outline be realized, the filling up is not a mixture of care and vexings--and failure and regret? When we have reached some fancied goal of youthful promise, which shone to the far off eye like the battlements of Heaven, does not widowed hope put on her weeds, and mourn over her children, and refuse to be comforted because they are not?”

_Nescio._ “With such views of human life, where do you find any relief from your melancholy?”

_Tristo._ “To what should a mind saddened by its own afflictions look for consolation. The world of _realities_, as I have said, presents but a gloomy and scarred waste. Ah! then the greatness of the _poet’s_ power and the dignity of his art are most manifest. Then, that which in our grosser moods, we had deemed light, pretty, and only fit to while away an hour, becomes _mighty_, and _almost_ adorable. For the wearied and broken spirit, which all the riches of learning could not soothe, nor the gift of kingdoms elate, may by the witchery of poetry be wrapt into a calm, satisfied enjoyment.”

_Nescio._ “I wonder not that an early father, in holy abhorrence, called poesy, _vinum dæmonum_, the wine of fiends, if its influence be such as you assert. For surely it supplies to the educated and refined, the same refuge from corroding thought and disturbing conscience, which the intoxicating cup offers to the sensual and brutish.”

_Tristo._ “It is so in some measure, but with this difference, which will immediately rescue this ‘divina facultas’ from injurious reflections. The inebriating draught, the actual ‘uvæ succus’ offers its poor and transient relief to _all_. The unfortunate and the guilty, those upon whom melancholy has settled like a mist from the ground, causeless and undeserved, though unavoidable--and those upon whom an outraged conscience inflicts its scourgings in righteous retribution, may there seek and find oblivion. But only a pure life, a cultivated mind, a _religious nature_, (let not the phrase breed heresy,) can secure to one the healing influence of poetry.”

_Nescio._ “The idea is a sublime one. But is it not merely a beautiful _idea_? Can you bring forward any evidence to make it manifest, or even any illustration to render it probable?”

_Tristo._ “With ease. Indeed, were I to search far and wide through the whole circle of English poetry, I could not find a more pertinent illustration than in the passage which I have just been reading, and on which my finger now rests.”

_Nescio._ “What is it? Read it.”

_Tristo._ “Even its title is affecting. ‘On the receipt of my mother’s picture.’ It must be familiar to you, yet I will read a few lines.

‘O that those lips had language! Life has pass’d
With me but roughly since I saw thee last.
Those lips are thine--thy own sweet smile I see,
The same, that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
‘Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!’
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blessed be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles Time’s tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.’

Suppose now the case of two individuals, of equal refinement, intellect, and sensibility, (save that in one the edge of all these qualities must have been blunted by moral defection) nay--that by making the parallel closer, the contrast may be more obvious--suppose them to be brothers. In early life they both were trained in the path of moral rectitude, from which the one has never swerved, but the other has been constantly making wider and wider deviations. Place them now in the situation of the poet, and let them read these lines. The image recalled, the object of their contemplation is the same--their early associations are the same. But the effect is far different. The conviction is present with one, that he has persevered in that course, which his mother toiled and wept to place him in, and in pleased sadness he will repeat with Cowper,

‘And while the wings of Fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft--
Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.’

The other is melancholy, but his is the melancholy of remorse. Each vivid recollection but ‘adds hot instance to the gushing tear,’ and all that soothed his brother, but protracts _his_ pain. He feels in all its force the solemn truth, so quaintly expressed by the old dramatist, Suckling:

‘Our sins, like to our shadows
When our day is in its glory, scarce appeared:
Towards our evening how great and monstrous
They are!’

His feelings are sympathetically described by Byron:

‘So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like scorpion girt by fire;
So withers the mind remorse hath riven,
Unfit for earth, undoom’d for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death.’

_Nescio._ “You have quoted Byron, rather unfortunately for your argument, I think, Tristo. For he is an instance of the existence of high poetic power, in a mind depraved by the baseness of his moral sentiments.”

_Tristo._ “You mistake my meaning, if you infer from it that I think the _existence_ of poetic power incompatible with moral degradation, for there are many, too many instances of this kind. My position was that a pure and unsophisticated character was essential to the _enjoyment_ of this faculty in one’s self, or as displayed by others. And of this Byron is as strong a case as I could wish. Every spark of genius, but assisted in lighting the flame, which scathed and consumed his heart. ’Twas so with Shelly, and in the later years of his life, with Burns. Moore is the only similar author who approaches to an exception to this rule. But how widely different with the opposite class of poets. Can you read a page of Cowper, or Wordsworth, without feeling that they derive pure and exquisite pleasure from their inspiration. Indeed to the former it was almost his _only_ source of enjoyment--without it he would have been wretched, in truth, for his nature was too sensitive for a rough and jostling world.”

_Nescio._ “I cannot deny it. You have, however, a higher idea of the value and interest and influence of poetry than is current now-a-days. I myself have been disposed to regard the high pretensions of this ‘divina gens’ with something of distrust. I have dipped into our poetic literature as extensively, probably, as most of my age; I have been pleased and profited, but never have I been blessed with an admission into the _penetralia_. My most diligent search (as Pausanias records of the petitioner at Pion’s tomb) has been rewarded by _smoke_.”

_Tristo._ “I know that to the unreflecting crowd the life and labors of the poet seem poor and paltry. He is one by himself--a flower-gathering, shade-loving idler in a garden, where others are busily plying the mattock and the spade. To them he appears engaged neither in lessening the evils, nor in adding to the blessings of life. His musings they deem like the dreams of the sleeper, where fancy, and vanity, and passion, draw scenes of glory and of pleasure with the bold tracery of an unfettered hand; but to the waking eye in the light of reason, those pictures are changed to the ungraceful lines, and uncolored objects of ordinary life.”

_Nescio._ “I am by no means satisfied that their view is not a correct one. It seems to me that the allurements of poetry and the splendors of romance are all lymphatic draughts to inebriate the mind, and, as ‘the subtle blood of the grape,’ exalts and quickens the animal spirits, only thereafter to retard and depress, so do these unearthly potations elevate the soul, but leave it dull, drooping and disgusted. Especially pernicious in their influence are the trashy productions of ephemeral minds, which ‘dream false dreams and see lying visions,’ which clothe the children of their fancy in perfections to which man is a stranger, and fill the untaught soul with hopes and aspirations, which earth can never realize. Byron certainly, and, I think, even Shakspeare, exert an evil influence in their portraitures of character. Their actors are so sublime, or so lovely, that they first inspire the mind with false hope, and then fill it with vain despair.”

_Tristo._ “You speak the language of a half philosopher, who generalizes a few isolated facts into an all-embracing theory. Even Byron’s evil influence results not from the unnatural beauty of his characters and scenery, but rather from the fact that he does not seem to conceive of virtue even in the abstract; he no where shows regard for aught but self, and no where recognizes even by accident a standard of right and wrong. As for Shakspeare, nature is visible in all his writings; virtue and vice are strangely mingled, even as among the scenes and occurrences of life. If he ever deviates from the actual and the known, it is either in the delineation of some creature of professedly ideal existence, such as Ariel and Puck; or else in the combination of circumstances which produces characters, that all will allow to be natural, though such they have never seen in actual life and motion.”

_Nescio._ “Suffer me for a moment to interrupt you, and ask what is _nature_? Shakspeare is certainly more natural than most of his successors, and yet, for the life of me I cannot point out the difference, where it is, or in what it consists. For the incidents of that great master are sometimes not merely improbable, but impossible.”

_Tristo._ “The difference is this, Shakspeare brings together improbable occurrences in almost impossible conjunctions; yet he _always_ makes the _words_ and _actions_ of his characters consistent. Other dramatists have their plots sufficiently probable, and their junctures and transitions natural and easy--this is the effect of study; but their actors have no individuality--and this is a defect of genius, that no study nor midnight watchings can supply: their figures are sometimes one thing, sometimes another: the _contour_, air, and attitude, are all shifting and various. This is more particularly observable in works of the tragic or semi-tragic cast, than in the comic productions of the older writers. In Dryden, for instance, the comedies are many of them laughable and good; but the tragedies, saving here and there a splendid spangle, are cold, inflated fustian. Even in scenes of the most intense excitement, when grief is wrought up to agony, and passion foams with ungovernable rage, he makes his characters talk, talk, talk, instead of acting. In place of some brief and stormy exclamation, such as nature prompts and passion utters, they stand still, gesticulate by rule, and bring out long similitudes of studied elegance, and elaborate perfection. Their ruined hopes they liken to a blighted tree, and coolly pursue the track of the lightning from the topmost leaf to the downmost root, showing you how _here_ it grazed, and _there_ cut to the very heart. Oh agony! Their words are hot--hot enough in all conscience, when taken one by one--_minutatim_--but collectively they are verbiage, not pathos.”

_Nescio._ “I have been thinking that a natural may be distinguished from an unnatural author, in that you can not only clearly conceive, but distinctly remember the form and bearing of the characters in the one, while the actors in the other leave no definite impression. The Falstaff of Shakspeare, and the Arbaces of Bulwer, are good illustrations of my meaning. Both are characters, which, we are certain, never _did_ exist. How, then, is Falstaff natural, and Arbaces the reverse? The former _might_ exist; the latter _never could_ have being. The _former_ is a collection of qualities, carried, it may be, to excess; the _latter_ is a union of contradictions. The _former_ is witty and sensual and boastful beyond reality, but not beyond possibility; the _latter_ is a lumbering conception of a grand and gloomy _something_--a shadow of magnificent shapelessness--it has no _identity_, and its shifting outline it would puzzle Proteus to trace. In the language of the schools, Falstaff is in _posse_, but not in _esse_--while Arbaces is neither in _esse_, nor _posse_, nor any where else save in Bulwer’s head.”

_Tristo._ “I believe you are right. But I was about to state why poetry is a valuable--aye, an _in_-valuable gift. Now, observe--I mean, not rhyme, ‘the drowsy tintinnabulum of song’--nor the display of those poetical words, which, like trite coins, have no image nor superscription left--nor yet, ‘in linked sweetness long-drawn out,’ those brilliant figures, which have come down unimpaired from Homer, and serve to conceal the deficiency of sense--but I mean the pure ‘poetry of the heart’--the rich essence of feeling and of thought--whether its expression be prose or verse, ‘oratio soluta,’ vel ‘constricta.’ It is true, without exception, that the purer and less hackneyed are the feelings, the richer and more gushing is this ‘poetry of the heart.’ And this proves its excellence. To the eye and the ear of childhood, the ‘visible face of nature,’ the green beneath, and the ‘skyey blue’ above, with the thousand voices, that come quivering from the forest-depths, are all one vast _poem_, modulated to a measure of dulcet melody, and awakening sympathies inexplicably sweet. Thought to them is a rambling revery, and existence is a thrilling dream. As they lie upon the green grass, and view the sky, and gaze, and gaze upon the unutterable depths, the yearnings for something beyond, beyond, _beyond_, are quick, and strange, and powerful within them. As they grow old, and hardened, and thankless, and wicked, does not poetry vanish, and fancy flee? Are not the dreams of purity, and kindness, and affection, which were but the strugglings of the youthful spirit to attain the blessedness it was made for, supplanted by hard plans, and cold calculations of wealth, and luxury, and restlessness, and pride? Hope and Love, the birds of Paradise, that nestled in the boyish heart, and fluttered with many-colored wings over their warm progeny of kindling wishes, and bright resolves, are banished from their early home, and in their place, with gloomy pinions, settle a thousand cormorant birds, with the vultures of remorseless Ambition, and Greediness for _more_. Who does not feel that it is only in his holier and nobler hours that poesy creeps through him like a spirit, and thoughts of grandeur cause his flesh to quiver, even as the forest is shaken by the footsteps of the wind? Can one, who has but now stained his soul with knavery or meanness, read that unparalleled monologue of Hamlet, and surrender his heart to the greatness of its power? Can any, save he whose spirit is daily and deeply filled with the sublimity of rectitude, appreciate Milton’s sonnet upon his blindness, a specimen of moral grandeur in thought and purpose, which has found no equal in the walks of mind? I say not that even in the bosoms of the vicious and the hardened, the perusal of sublime or lovely conceptions will fail to produce emotion--deep, strong emotion--for, wound and abuse it as you may, there will still, even at three-score years and ten, remain something of that ardent pulse, which, in boyhood, burned at the sight of beauty, and bounded at the voice of song. But poesy will no longer gush continually upward from the fountains of his heart, like refreshing waters from a perennial spring. And what a glorious thing must it be for a Pitt or a Webster, when worn in the defense of Freedom, and weary with the hopelessness of their toil, in the pages of Scott to bury for a time the projects of ambition, and the chicanery of courts! When they bow their own mighty intellects at the still mightier shrines of Milton or of Shakspeare, is not theirs the sacred thrill of the eastern pilgrim, when he falls and worships at the tomb of his fathers? Wo be to him, who would lessen his hours of poetic enthusiasm; for those hours are a backward vista to an earlier and better state. True poetry is the basis of devotion; and devotion added to poetry is the ‘Pelion upon Ossa,’ by which mortals may climb once more to the heaven from which they fell.”

Ego.

HORA ODONTALGICA.

“Again the play of pain
Shoots o’er his features, as the sudden gust
Crisps the reluctant lake.”
_Byron._

(_Throb_--_throb_--_throb_--) Oh this marrow-piercing, jaw-torturing, peace-destroying pain!--(_throb_--_throb_--_throb_--) Sure the rack were a plaything, lunar-caustic a balsam, aqua-fortis the very essence of pleasure, compared with this soul-and-body-distracting torment--this anguish double-refined, this agony of agonies. “A little patience, my dear sir,” interrupted a soothing voice. ‘Patience!’ exclaimed I, ‘talk of patience to a cubless bear, a dinnerless wolf, an officeless demagogue--but not to me. Would you look for moderation in a maniac? wisdom in an idiot? gentility in a clown? Who expects patience of a man driven to distraction by the tooth-ache?--(_Throb_--_throb_--_throb_--) Oh! that arrow-like pang----the most excruciating of all!--And I clapped my hands to my jaws, and springing from my chair, shrieked in agony. “Let’s see your tooth,” grumbled a rough unfeeling voice--and before me stood a veteran Esculapian, with his lancet and forceps fearfully conspicuous. ‘On with your instrument, Doctor,’ exclaimed I, ‘and out with it, though I die under the operation.’ My head was soon made stationary between two brawny hands, and my jaws extended to their widest angle; the knife had unbared the offending dental, and the dreaded instrument was ready for its work--but suddenly the pain subsided--my feelings changed--I looked on the ‘cold iron’ with horror--‘No! I’ll not have it out now;’--and the man of forceps left me.

Again felt I the pangs of a ‘jumping’ tooth-ache. Powders--drops--essential oils--remedies of every genus and species were tried in vain. Even red-hot iron was of no avail--the nerve was fire-proof. Throwing myself into a rocking chair, with elbows on my knees and hands on my jaws, I leaned over the fire in moody anguish. “The mind,” say physicians, “exerts a sympathetic influence upon the body.” ‘Perhaps then,’ thought I, ‘the disease may not be wholly physical, after all;’--and I began to reflect that suffering often apparently finds relief in association and sympathy. The hard-featured mariner takes delight in tales of naval misery; the veteran warrior, in descriptions of battles; the love-lorn maiden, in ‘doleful tales of love and woe;’ the disappointed suitor in dark maledictions and long-drawn vituperations, against all that bear the name of woman.

With this in mind, I glanced at my book-case for some treatise adapted to my own circumstances. Nothing presented itself more to the point than the ‘Works of Robert Burns.’ His ‘Address to the Tooth-ache’ was soon before me. I read it from beginning to end with profound attention. The difficult Scotticisms were explained in the glossary. I sought the meaning of every word--I entered fully into the spirit of the piece. How beautiful!

“My curse upon thy venom’d stang,
That shoots my tortur’d gums alang;
An’ thro’ my lugs gies monie a twang,
Wi’ gnawing vengeance;
Tearing my nerves wi’ bitter pang,
Like racking engines!

When fevers burn, or ague freezes,
Rheumatics gnaw, or colic squeezes,
Our neighbor’s sympathy may ease us,
Wi’ pitying moan;
But thee--thou hell o’ a’ diseases,
Ay mocks our groan!

Adown my beard the slavers trickle!
I throw the wee stools o’er the meikle,
As round the fire the giglets keckle
To see me loup;
While raving mad I wish a heckle
Were in their doup.

O’ a’ the num’rous human dools,
Ill har’sts, daft bargains, _cutty-stools_,
Or worthy friends rack’d i’ the mools,
Sad sight to see!
The tricks o’ knaves, or fash o’ fools,
Thou bear’st the gree.

Where’er that place be priests ca’ hell,
Whence a’ the tunes o’ mis’ry yell,
And ranked plagues their numbers tell,
In dreadfu’ raw,
Thou, Tooth-ache, surely bear’st the bell
Amang them a’!

O thou grim mischief-making chiel,
That gars the notes of _discord_ squeel,
Till daft mankind aft dance a reel
In gore a shoe-thick;
Gie a’ the faes o’ Scotland’s weel
A towmond’s Tooth-ache!”

Never before had it appeared in half so favorable a light. Never before was I so thoroughly convinced that to appreciate the beauties of an author, we must enter into his feelings--possess his spirit. This I could now do perfectly. And those brief stanzas--where was there ever such genuine poetry as in them? Byron, in comparison, was fustian; Milton bombast; Shakspeare a mere poetaster, and Homer a sleepy-head--‘_quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus_.’

The effect was astonishing. Ere I had finished the fifth reading, my sufferings were so much alleviated, that I could even recognize my own countenance in a mirror--though still somewhat distorted. After the tenth reading, however, the kindly influence ceased. In vain did I persevere; the fifteenth perusal was accomplished; but all to no purpose. The twang--twang--twang--and the gnawing, wrenching, screwing sensation still continued. Again I leaned over the fire in silent despair. I revolved in my mind the poem I had just read--the sentiment--the meter--the rhyme. A thought struck me. This eternal snap, snap, snap, said I to myself, is meter; this perpetual recurrence of similar pains is rhyme; these momentary cessations of agony are intervals of stanzas. Surely the tooth-ache, thought I, is a poetical subject. Coleridge lay open on my table. My eye rested on a scrap of rhythmical Latin.

“Dormi, Jesu! Mater ridet,
Quae tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi Jesu! blandule!
Si non dormis, Mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat
Blande, veni, somnule.”

The hint was sufficient. Ainsworth and the glossary soon enabled me to metamorphose Burns’s Scotch into Monkish Latin. If the meter appear sometimes lame, or the syntax barbarous, the blame be on the torturing pulsations that guided the movement--on the disorganizing twinges that convulsed my whole mental fabric.

AD DENTIUM DOLOREM.

Exsecrandum venenatum
Hunc dirumque mî dolorem,
Qui maxillam cruciatam
Nunc percurrit; ac sonorem
Dat in auribus frequènter,
Cum sevitiâ rodente;
Nervi quoque lacerantur,
Quasi machinâ torquente!

Febri, quidèm, aestuante,
Rheumatismo commordente,
Vel rigore congelante,
Sive colicâ premente,
Nos vicini miserentur,
Luctuoso comploratu;
Sed, Inferne morbos inter,
Nostro ludis ejulatu!

Barba madet mea sputis;
Atque sterno locum sellis,
In cachinnum nunc solutis
Antè foculum puellis,
Cùm saltare me viderent;
Memet interim volente
Ut in pectines urgerent,
Ex dolore, tam demente.

Inter omnes cruciatus,
Quibus homines premuntur,--
Sive messes devastates,
Sive pacta quae franguntur,
Sive funus amicorum,
Sive poenitentium sedeis,
Sive dolos improborum,--
Longè plurimùm tu lædis!

Ubicunque locus iste--
Orcum sacerdotes ferunt--
Unde planctus fremunt tristè,
Ac in ordinem sederunt
Mala valde luctuosa--
Istìc, uti mî videtur,
Odontalgia probrosa!
Istìc palma _te_ tolletur.

O, maligne tu torveque
Cacodæmon, instigare
Tot rixarum soliteque,
Ut in tabo saltitare
Cæci homines cogantur!
Fac, qui hostes sunt Scotorum,
Anni spatium cruciantur
Dirum dentium per dolorem!

Before I had finished the closing stanza, the pain entirely left me--whether it was owing to the exorcizing qualities of the Latin, the soothing influence of the verse, the defiance-breathing spirit of the sentiment, or to the _length of time_ requisite for the performance, I am unable to decide. Suffice it to say, that if any one, in making trial of the remedy himself, after translating ten English stanzas into Latin rhyme, experiences no relief, let him take an hundred stanzas. If after this performance the pain still continues, let the prescription be a thousand stanzas; and unless the patient be an uncommonly rapid, or an unpardonably careless versifier, we hesitate not to predict that ere he has accomplished half his task, one of two things will prove true--either the tooth-ache will have left him for ever, or _he_ will have bidden farewell to the tooth-ache, and, with it, to all the pains, and sorrows, and sufferings of this ‘vale of tears.’

GREEK ANTHOLOGY.--No. V.

Whew! baked, parched, roasted, toasted, seethed, stewed, boiled, broiled, and all the other synonymes of igniferous horror. Oh! ye dark-skinned Ethiops, how I love you! Verily I am an amalgamationist. “Ye are black, but comely as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.” Though angry Phoebus did once pour his fierceness upon your sweating brows, till they were dusky as the wings of night, yet are ye not misimproved thereby; for your impenetrable nigritude, surmounted by your oily fleece--more precious than that golden one, after which sailed Jason and the Argonauts--can bid defiance to the heat of Hyperion. One would think young Phoebus had again mounted the car of the far-flinging Apollo, when, as Ovid has it,

“Inferiusque suis fraternos currere Luna
Admiratur equos; ambustaque nubila fumant.”

The winds are currents of fused lead, and the atmosphere is a huge sudorific. What relation has the weather to Greek Anthology? “Much every way.” The heat unnerves the body, the body depresses the mind, and the weakness of the mind deteriorates Greek Anthology. Yet now that the god of day is on the outmost skirts of the horizon, let me invoke thy still descent, Oh! Muse of Evening, in the exquisite words of Collins.

“Oh, Nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
With brede ethereal wove,
O’erhang his wavy bed--” &c. &c.

’Tis of no use. Inspiration cannot be awakened to-night. The summit of Soracte is no longer ‘white with snow’--the waters of Helicon stand at blood-heat--the fountain of Bandusia, “_splendidior vitro_,” has seethed its own frogs--and the gushings of Arethusa herself are hot enough to boil eggs. Nevertheless, one draught, oh goddess.

‘Extremum hunc, mihi concede laborem.’

_Upon Magnasus, by Lucillius._

With nose so huge, Olympicus, beware
How thy mad feet approach a fountain cool,
And in thy wanderings, shun with heedful care
The sleeping mirror of the mountain-pool,
For, like Narcissus of unhappy fate,
Thy wondrous phiz will through the waters shine,
And as he died of love, so thou of hate
Wilt gaze astonished, and with anguish pine.

The following is trite, yet true. The ambitious might, but will not profit thereby. What is so obvious is forgotten.

All names, all ranks are levelled by the grave,
The bloom of beauty, and the pride of state,
And he, who, living, was a humble slave,
Death renders even as the monarch great.

_To a statue of Venus at Cnidos, by Praxiteles._

No! not the artist’s skillful hand,
Nor chisel wrought that form divine;
For thus didst thou on Ida stand,
And thus before the shepherd shine.

* * * * *

Around the pillar, that surmounts my tomb,
No garlands wreathe, and scatter no perfume,
Nor burn the watch fire--’tis an empty stone--
Thy waste is useless, for my race is run.
Give what thou hast, while life is in its bud--
These late libations turn my _dust_ to _mud_.
The buried drink not; for, with life’s last charms,
Forgetfulness enshrouds them in her arms.

There is very little poetry in the following commemoration: but, if the poor fellow did actually perform the _subscribed_ feats, and that for fame, he deserved to be immortalized.

_To the statue of Phayllus, a Crotonian, and victor in the_ five games.

Feet fifty-five Phayllus leaped,
(At which the Muses wondered)
And when the disc he raised and hurled,
He conquered full five hundred.

_The tettix (a species of balm-cricket) to its shepherd-captors._

Why, oh ye shepherds, from the dew-moist boughs
With thriftless chase the tettix do ye take,
The Dryads’ wayside singer, who arouse
The lonely echoes, till the woods awake,
And chant at mid-day, where the wood-nymph dwells
Among the mountains and the darkling dells.
The black-bird, starling, and the thrush assault,
For they are daily plunderers of you;
’Tis right that they should perish for their fault;
But who is jealous for the morning-dew?

TO CORRESPONDENTS

An essay “On the reason of animals not the reason of man,” is accepted, and shall appear soon.

An essay “On the study of human nature in the works of the imagination,” is under consideration.

Lines “to Miss W.” and a “Vision,” are declined.

“Washington,” and “Poetica Falsa,” both possess considerable merit; but from press of matter, we are compelled respectfully to decline them.

“The Weather,” and a “Review of the past, No. 1.” are inadmissible.

P.’s remonstrance is received. Upon reconsideration, we perceive the impropriety of publishing the stanzas without the “Prolegomena;” and the Prolegomena are too long for insertion. The inference is obvious.

“On Death,” by D., in several respects is unsuitable for publication.

“On the death of an aged friend,” is received, and shall appear. We would request, however, the liberty of making a few alterations.

“An address to the Sun,” the counterpart of the “Apostrophe to the Moon,” from which we quoted in our first number. The author must have suffered from a ‘stroke of the sun,’ before he wrote his address, e. g.

“Great and glorious Sun!
High ’mid etherial mete
Thou dost wheel thy burning car,
And through all thine empire afar,
Dost diffuse light and heat,
For this begun,
Thy course is run,
Till time shall be no more, and thou art done.”

“And what though thou, fair Sun!
May’st boast a mighty sway?
That earth, moon and every planet
Roll round thee their imperial seat,
And thy power obey?
From him begun
Thou brilliant Sun,
And all ye hosts of heaven your course to run.”

We have been accused of too great severity in our notes to correspondents. We ask pardon of our contributors for our impoliteness, and offer no further justification than that afforded by the old proverb, ‘Evil _communications_ corrupt good manners.’

PROSPECTUS OF THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE.

TO BE CONDUCTED BY THE STUDENTS OF YALE COLLEGE.

An _apology_ for establishing a Literary Magazine, in an institution like Yale College, can hardly be deemed requisite by an enlightened public; yet a statement of the objects which are proposed in this Periodical, may not be out of place.

To foster a literary spirit, and to furnish a medium for its exercise; to rescue from utter waste the many thoughts and musings of a student’s leisure hours; and to afford some opportunity to train ourselves for the strife and collision of mind which we must expect in after life;--such, and similar motives have urged us to this undertaking.

So long as we confine ourselves to these simple objects, and do not forget the modesty becoming our years and station, we confidently hope for the approbation and support of all who wish well to this institution.

* * * * *

The work will be printed on fine paper and good type. Three numbers to be issued every term, each containing about 40 pages, 8vo.

_Conditions_--$2,00 per annum, if paid in advance, or 75 cents at the commencement of each term.

Communications may be addressed through the Post Office, “To the Editors of the Yale Literary Magazine.”

* * * * *

This No. contains 2½ sheets. Postage, under 100 miles, 3¾ cents; over 100 miles, 6¼ cents.

Printed by B. L. Hamlen.

Transcriber’s Notes

A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.

Cover image is in the public domain.

There are two instances where the name “Tristo” was substituted for
“Pulito” in the original publication:
_Tristo._ “With ease. Indeed,
_Tristo._ “Even its title is affecting.
Earlier in the text Pulito exits and there is nowhere in the text
where he returns.
Here Pulito made his exit, singing
It is likely this substitution restores the intent of the author.