Chapter II

Virtue--with the first dawn of infant mind,
Falling from lips that made it holier seem;
Goodness--when deeds with precept were combined,
To show the world--“religion is no dream;”
Tears--when my heart was all too sad to weep them,
Cares--when affliction press’d me bitterly,
Watching--when none but love like thine could keep them,
Rebukes--yet with a blessing in thine eye;
An eye that watch’d me and would never sleep,
A well-timed word to keep me in the way,
A look, that made me go from thee and weep,
A faith, that made thee watch, and kneel, and pray--
These, these are thine--O! sweet are then to me,
Mother! the thoughts of home, of my sweet home, and thee.

Thus I valued her. But she’s in her grave now, and I often go there to watch and weep, and please myself with the vain fancy, that her spirit is bending over me. I always feel holier after it--as if I had come from another world--had been beyond the grave--had unravelled the great mysteries of life and death, and could now look upon life unsway’d by that natural Atheism which ever clings to humanity, and mingles in all our aspirations for the future. Watching and prayer ever better us. But by the grave of a loved one, there are still holier influences. We see them through the mirror of feeling. If they had faults, they have them no longer; and their virtues, we canonize them--they are relics--they are talismans which we lay on our hearts, and they are holier for the contact.

Earth’s thoughts come not to the grave’s side. The idle, the giddy and gay, they do not jest here--the song of triumph ceases, the unfinished quip dies on the lip that made it. The famed, the haughty, the ambitious, they bring not their proud thoughts with them--they tread its holy precincts, and their schemes are forgotten. The school boy’s whistle is lower here, and the butterfly he chases so eagerly, scales the white palings and escapes--he will not follow him. The very flowers that bloom here, the osiers that swathe the grave of that little one and twine about the head stones--they teach us by their freshness, and our thoughts stir up the fountains in us, and the heart is hallowed by it.

Come hither, thou parent--a father perhaps. This was thy heart’s pride and passion. Hope and promise were his. You had already marked his path. Here were the flowers--there the thorns. You saw him in fancy, out of his boyhood--the youth--the young man--his cheek glowing for the contest. Death came--and you laid him here.

Come hither, thou parent--a mother perhaps. This was thy first born. You bore him on your heart; you nursed him; you hung over him; you wept and prayed for him as mothers only can do; and _you_ too, have laid him here. The little form you decked so--the locks that swung over a brow of silver--the face with its beauty, and light, and sweetness, and all the innocency of happy childhood--the clear silver shout of his joy--the step that ran to thee--the lip that pouted for the morning and evening kiss--aye! here they are--look at them.

And who art thou, mourner?--thou that lookest not up to the glorious sky, or abroad on the fair face of the creation of God; but, wrapped in the selfishness and solitude of thy grief, standest here like a lone monument of dead men’s histories--who art thou? Thine eye is on that slab there; ’tis a maiden’s. Thou lovedst her perhaps; her heart beat to thee; her lip was free to thy wooing. She was decked for a bridal; the rite had sealed her thine; and death strewed thy bridal couch with rosemary, and rue, and the gloomy cypress.

And what do these here? They come here to weep, for it sanctifies them. They come from the roar, and bustle, and heartlessness of life, and they would listen awhile to the eloquence of the shrouded dead. O! the dead are eloquent! The voice is low, yet louder than that of many waters! They tell us that our loved ones were not ours! They tell us that they were lent to us, and have now been reclaimed! They tell us, that though saddening, ’tis sweet to think of them, for they tie us and our souls to the purity of Heaven!

Some men shudder as they look into a grave; and well they may, some of the world. But the heart is wrong which feels thus. Does the sight of land give pain to the shipwrecked? is the hope of freedom unwelcome at the dungeon? does the sound of waters please in the desert? does the thought of sleep annoy us when weary? does the hope of oblivion give pain when the heart aches? Why then should the thought of what is greater gain than all these come to our hearts, but to waken their holiest emotions?

O! ’tis because there is a power within,
Whisp’ring of good neglected--ill preferred--
Duties cast off, and faculties misus’d!
It is, because the mortal triumphs, while
The purer passions, crushed or rooted out,
Leave him to be enslaved,--and thus in moments
When meditation, like a vestal waits
Upon his heart, the buoyancy and peace
Which should be his, give place to heaviness,
And indefinable wretchedness of soul.
O! could the heart be school’d--could it be made
True to its nature--to the impress graved
Upon it by the hand of Deity--
Could it be made to balance good and ill,
With purpose to be wise--could it but choose
The pure, and love it for its purity--
How blissful then, were thoughts of death and Heaven!

* * * * *

There--young lady! I’ve _thought_ for your “Omnibus,”--pray, what do you think?

*

* * * * *

EPIGRAM,

ON MR. ----, A BAD SINGER.

The song of Orpheus and yours are one,
Both caused mankind and beast to run,
Only--_in different ways_;
_To_ him they went like wild deer freed,
_From_ you they go with equal speed,
To shun your “awful lays.”
Z.

THE COFFEE CLUB.

No. IV.

“Authors who acquire a reputation by pilfering all their beauties from others, may be compared to Harlequin and his snuff, which he collected by borrowing a pinch out of every man’s box he could meet, and then retailed it under the pompous title of ‘_tabác de mille fleurs_.’”

_Fitzosborne’s Letters._

“If the work cannot boast of a regular plan, (in which respect, however, I do not think it altogether indefensible,) it may yet boast that the reflections are naturally suggested always by the preceding passage.”

_Cowper’s Letters._

_No est tan bravo il leon, como se pinta_--the lion is not so fierce as his picture--says the Spanish proverb, and such will doubtless be your exclamation, fair, gentle, indulgent, or judicious reader, (by whichever title you may please to be addressed,) when you discover that the heroes of the Coffee Club, invested by your scrutinizing sagacity with so many fictitious attributes, whether of honor or of dishonor, are in truth but cognate atoms with yourself in making up the mass of our small and secluded community. Nor will your self-satisfaction be at all enhanced, by the remembrance of the astute conjectures, ‘positive certainties,’ ‘perfect convictions,’ and ‘confidential informations,’ which have afforded you matter of exultation for a season, but are, by the revealment of the truth, shown to be unfounded, and if cherished with vanity, ridiculous. Each, however, may soothe his chagrin, with the assurance that no one was wiser than himself, and that the secret, which baffled his endeavors, not even the talismanic power of woman’s curiosity could elicit.

It is the eve of the farewell exercises of the class, and the last meeting of the Coffee Club. Tristo had thrown gloom upon our spirits, by a mournful _epitaph_ upon the pleasures and the duties, now buried in the past--but Pulito has reversed our feelings by a brilliant _epithalamium_, for our coming bridal day, on which we are to wed the _world_. So is it in life--we shed one tear over the past, and hasten on to catch the future.

“Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.”

In such a mood, the thoughts of all naturally reverted to the time when first we entered upon that stage in the journey of life, which we have now completed. As we traced our progress onward, and recalled our errors and our follies, our hopes and disappointments, our attainments and our short-comings, the desire of sympathy, of consolation, and encouragement, led to a full and free expression of our thoughts and feelings. Apple, however, as his cigar wreathed forth its exhalations,

‘Upward and downward, thwarting and convolved,’

and puns and quips unceasing shot through their obscurity, like lightning through a cloud, seemed at first to be in no mood for the pathetic, or the serious. Pulito, too, after a brief and apparently regretful abstraction, broke forth in a strain half querulous, half laughing.

_Pulito._ “Well, ‘gentlemen commoners,’ however discourteous the remark may appear to you and your society, I must ne’ertheless regret that I am not this evening where I might have been, in a certain far-famed street, and gazing upon a certain lovely face, whose owner’s name ’twould be profanity to mention. I may say with the stricken Cowper,

‘Farewell to the _elm-tree_, farewell to the shade
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade.’”

_Nescio_, (smiling.) “‘Lugete oh! Veneres Cupidinesque!’ As an old dramatist has it,

‘Your soul, retired within her inmost chamber,
Like a fair mourner, sits in state with all
The silent pomp of sorrow round about her.’”

_Pulito._ “Yes, and to borrow from the same play, The Rival Ladies, I think,

‘Oh she is gone! methinks she should have left
A track so bright, I might have followed her
Like setting suns that vanish in a glory.’”

_Nescio._ “For the sake of quoting beautifully, you quote without application.”

_Apple_, (in a voice of thunder.) “Who in the name of heaven is it about whom you are making all this ‘tempest in a tea-pot?’ Girls, girls, girls, for ever and eternally! I wonder what you see in them! weak and shallow! It maddens me, Pulito, to see you, a fellow of some small sense, ‘bowing the knee in worship to an idol,’ a minion-queen, a painted doll--

‘A pagod thing of flirting sway,
With front of brass, and feet of clay.’”

_Pulito._ “Why, Apple, from your fierceness, I suspect you have lately met with a rebuff from some fair damsel.”

_Apple._ “No, indeed I have not; I was afraid I should though, and did not give her a chance. I was acquainted with some of them once, and endeavored to patronize, instruct, and even please them. But they had neither the acuteness to perceive the point of my puns, nor the complaisance to laugh at them, even when I led the way. In fact--the fiends scorch their pictures!--I believe they laughed _at_ instead of _with_ me. ‘Flattery is nectar and ambrosia to them.’ They drink it in and enjoy it like an old woman sucking metheglin through a quill.”

_Pulito._ “I allow that

----‘if ladies be but young and fair,
They have the gift to know it.’

But this is chargeable upon us, who are accustomed to lie to them about their charms, as a matter of course.”

_Apple._ “Then, too, if beautiful, they can scarce be good. For, ‘honesty coupled to beauty, is to have honey a sauce to sugar.’”

_Pulito._ “How! Is what is fair at surface necessarily foul at heart?

‘Why what a world is this, where what is comely,
Envenoms him that bears it.’”

_Apple._ “And how wide is their information, scientific, literary, political, moral! Their wits ‘are dry as a remainder biscuit after a voyage.’”

_Pulito._ “Well, Apple, I should think you had exhausted Shakspeare and yourself for terms of reproach: yet it still remains true, that they are the dearest, sweetest things ‘_in rerum naturâ_,’ and

‘Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth,’

I shall still love them one and all.”

_Nescio._ “Yes.

‘Dulcé ridentem Lalagen amabo
Dulcé loquentem.’”

_Tristo._ “I am no ladies’ man. I am too grave for their society. Yet I am willing to acknowledge that, together with their influence, they are half that makes life valuable. They are the purifying and refining ingredient in the seething caldron of society. Their perceptions are more rapid and acute than ours, and if deceitful, it is from _necessity_, which you know is the mother of _invention_.”

_Pulito._ “For my part, the absence of those pretty faces, which I have been wont to see in my ‘walk and conversation,’ will greatly deepen my regret at leaving this delightful place.”

_Apple._ “Pooh! couldn’t you sentimentalize a bit? ‘_Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis, Arbor æstivâ recreatur aurâ_,’ &c. Turn me adrift in New England, New Guinea, or New Zealand, and let me have good meats, good drinks, good _kapniphorous_ cigars and a dozen comedies, and I don’t care a rush.”

_Pulito._ “Oh! what an _animal_! Why, Dumpling, do you suppose you have a _soul_, or are you a mere lump of flesh, a ‘congregation of skin, bone and spissitude,’ to use one of your own ridiculous phrases?”

_Apple._ “Yes, Pully, I suspect I have such a thing as a soul somewhere--but I cannot determine its _locale_--neither do I fash my beard thereanent, since it is the only _immaterial_ thing about me, ha! ha!”

_Nescio._ “That’s Apple, through and through, to circumvent truth by a quibble.”

_Pulito._ “But have you no sympathy with this verdant city and its lovely scenes? Why, this very evening,

‘When the sweet wind doth gently kiss the trees.
And they do make no noise,’

is a copy of Paradise.”

_Apple._ “Yes! the ‘Paradise of fools.’”

_Pulito._

“‘On such a night
Stood Dido, with a willow in her hand,
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love
To come again to Carthage.’”

_Apple._

“‘On such a night did young Pulito strive
T’ unseal the fount of feeling in his heart,
And be poetic--_but he could not do it_.’”

_Pulito._ “The air is like the breath of birds.”

_Apple._ “Such birds as caged pullets and mousing owls, probably, ha! ha!”

_Pulito._ “And then the cemetery, and these streets high-overarched with their verdant walls of inwoven shade.”

_Apple._ “Poetical, i’faith! _My_ only amusement in the _burying-ground_, as an unsophisticated gentleman like myself would call it, is to read the queer old epitaphs.”

_Nescio._ “And mark how not even the ear of Death is secure from the poison of flattery.”

_Apple._ “Pretty fair! I approve of that remark. As for these streets, strip them of their green guardians, and they would be dry enough to choke the wave-washed throat of Neptune himself. How can fellows walk over all creation for fine prospects--my best prospect, as a kindred spirit once said, is the prospect of a good dinner.”

_Pulito._ “Surely, the view from East Rock is delightful.”

_Apple._ “Undoubtedly, if there be two or three mountain nymphs hanging affectionately on your arm. Oh! triple horror! To toil through two long miles of dusty barrenness, and crawl _a la quadrupede_ up a mountain of shifting sand and triturated stones, to view a few houses included between shoal water and furze hills.”

_Nescio._ “Methinks only a few weeks since, _you_ escorted thither some twelve or thirteen of these same mountain nymphs.”

_Apple._ “To be sure I did, and therefore I can speak from experience. But it argues an unkind disposition in you, to fling a man’s errors and misfortunes in his teeth. I did perpetrate that act, and as I hope forgiveness, I am contrite therefor. We set off one morning, when it was so hot that the very clouds _smoked_, though _I_ could not--for what would Jonathan Oldbuck’s ‘_woman-kind_’ say? ‘The ladies be upon thee, Sampson,’ thought I. I could not laugh, though there was enough that was ridiculous, for I had corns. So I went sweating along under a load of milk-and-water refreshments, like a man carrying his own gibbet. I climbed up the hill like another Sisyphus, with a train of Sirens behind me. When there what saw we. Why, through a cracked spy-glass, I saw _Nescio Quod_ here, my own chum, coming out the bookstore--wonderful, thrilling, soul-stirring prospect! Then, lo! we had left the pine-apples a quarter of a mile from the foot of the mountain, where we had stopped to browse. Nothing would do--one lady was faint, and must have a little pine-apple juice--another sweet nymph, in an unguarded moment, said that her principal object in coming, was the pleasure of eating the pine-apples--and another rosy-cheeked, and not very sylph-like figure, remarked, that if Mr. Dumpling would be so good as to go after the basket, he should have the pleasure of her arm down the mountain. The devil of a pleasure, thought I; the sweet creature must have ‘gane daft, clean daft,’ or she would never have offered such an inducement--better for me ‘that a millstone were hanged about my neck,’ &c.--but down I must come, and down I came, and when I got down, I stayed down. I ate the pine-apples myself, and laid down under the shade till evening, when I slunk home, leaving the ladies to their other beaux. I had some excuse though, for, while ‘midway between heaven and earth,’ I stumbled over a sweet-brier, and wrenched my ankle so excruciatingly, that Pope’s line occurred to my mind with some solemnity--

‘Die of a _rose_ in aromatic (_a rheumatic_) pain.’

You take, do you? I managed, however, to reset the _luxed_ but by no means _luxurious_ joint, and grateful for my escape, I have forsworn the ladies, and pray for grace to keep my vow.”

The laughter, long and loud, that succeeded the story of Apple’s tribulations, was a sort of clearing-up shower, and left the moral atmosphere in a temper more consonant with the seriousness of the hour. After a short breathing-space, the conversation broke forth anew, and in an entirely different channel. The sad peculiarity of our situation gave to our views, and possibly to our remarks, a tinge of bitterness and satire.

_Pulito._ “Well, fellows, ‘our course is run, our errand done’ within these walls, and we are to leave them for ever--and why not bid farewell with a light heart and bounding hopes. To be sure, the vexings of the world will be rather uncomfortable. A gentlemanly air, and a languid intimacy with the ‘tricksy pomp’ of literature, will not make a man a President or a _millionaire_.”

_Apple._ “The prospect is somewhat discouraging. I should have felt no misgivings at starting in the literary world a century ago, when the noble art of punning was duly appreciated and rewarded, as witness the celebrity of that great man, Dean Swift. Or I could have been content to have ruffled it with the quibbling, conceit-loving cavaliers, who basked in the smiles of Queen Bess. But now the principles of taste are sadly perverted, and this noble art, this sole distinctive mark of genius, has sought and found refuge only beneath the classic shades of College. It is truly sad to me, to think of leaving this last strong hold of wit and sentiment.”

_Nescio._ “Why, Apple, your grief bewilders your mind. You began with talking about _punning_, and ended with wit and sentiment. Where is the connection?”

_Apple._ “At least as close, Mr. Quod, as between your real and expressed opinion, when you speak so despitefully of this innocent and dignified amusement. But now we are on the subject, what is wit?”

_Nescio._ “To which question I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man--‘_tis that which we all see and know_.’ Such is the language of Barrow, the celebrated divine; I read it this very day. I however would admit no definition, that could possibly include a _pun_.”

_Tristo._ “You go to an extreme there, Nescio. A mere play upon words, a mere coincidence of sounds, makes but a poor jest, and a ready facility in discovering and thrusting into conversation these ‘imperfect sympathies,’ gives one but slight pretensions to the reputation of a wit. But there are some witticisms, which depend for their force upon a _pun_, but yet including also a racy humor, deserve the praise of true wit. I will read you an instance from Hazlitt:--“An idle fellow, who had only fourpence left in the world, which had been put by to pay for the baking of some meat for his dinner, went and laid it out to buy a new string for a guitar. An old acquaintance, on hearing this story, repeated these lines out of L’Allegro--

‘And ever against _eating_ cares
Lap me in soft Lydian airs.’”

Here the point of the jest lies in the pun upon _eating_, yet who does not acknowledge it as highly humorous. There are not many puns so refined and pure as this, but they sink in infinite and imperceptible gradations. You cannot draw a bold line between ‘the wit of words and wit of things.’ ‘For,’ as is said of Wit and Madness, ‘thin partitions do their bounds divide.’”

_Pulito._ “Very true, and I detest that squeamishness, which would refuse the praise of wit to any thing approaching to a pun, and sympathize most heartily with poor Apple for his many rebuffs. But nevertheless, Apple, ‘a joke’s prosperity lies in the ear of the hearer,’ Shakspeare says, and one should not complain if his pet witticisms are not received with applause and answered with laughter. If the jest is worthless, he deserves ridicule--if it does contain the essence of wit he has only himself to blame for giving it an utterance, where it could not be appreciated. Think you that Addison would have displayed his delicate humor for the amusement of crabbed and adust bookworms, or Voltaire sported his sarcasms to tickle the ear of clowns? Let their example encourage and instruct you, my dear Apple, and if you cannot equal their fame, you may, at least, attain the celebrity of Joe Miller.”

_Tristo._ “You will allow, however, Pulito, there is too often manifested a disposition to decry and disparage, when approbation would have been more natural. Censure is too often heard from lips, from which praise would have been more graceful, or silence more becoming. There are too many among us, who seek to rise upon the fall of their rivals--too many ‘frosty-spirited knaves,’ of whom it may be said, in bitterest truth, ‘not to admire is all the art they know.’”

_Pulito._ “I have, however, been accustomed to regard such characters with more of pity than severity. I have regarded them as defrauded by nature of the just proportions of humanity. I have been vexed by their perversity, but no more inclined to resent it, than to chastise the ceaseless annoyances of a child or an idiot.”

_Nescio._ “You underrate their _intellect_, that you may relieve their _heart_ from the imputation of baseness. True, he who is always searching for faults, without paying any attention to beauties, affords strong grounds for the conclusion, that he has no perception of the latter, and in his own experience is conversant only with the former: and he who is ever detecting plagiarisms, and starting resemblances, gives reason for the suspicion, that his acquaintance with the fountains of these stolen waters, is not so purely accidental, or so honorably gotten, as he would have us imagine. But deficiency of taste and weakness of mind are not the sole causes of such conduct. The _prompter_ of the whole is envy,--envy, the meanest passion of the human heart--the only one in which there is not some shade of honor, some trace of nobility. Ambition may be laudable--hate become a virtue from the loathsomeness of its object--covetousness acquire dignity from the excellence of the thing coveted--but the baseness of _envy_ is enhanced by the purity and splendor against which it is directed.”

_Tristo._ “Not only is envy so mean a passion in itself, but it exerts a most debasing influence upon the intellect and whole character. Indeed, if we may believe Coleridge, the cherishing of it is incompatible with the existence of genius. His language is solemn; would that all the fosterers, or rather the _victims_, of this worst vice, to which we are by our situation exposed, might listen to his warning. ‘Genius may co-exist with wildness, idleness, folly, even with crime; but not long, believe me, with the indulgence of an envious disposition. Envy is both the worst and justest divinity, as I once saw it expressed somewhere in a page of Stobæus; it dwarfs and withers its worshippers.’”

_Apple._ “To recall your attention, Tristo, to the subject from which we passed so suddenly to a more serious one, what think you of those who ‘wit-wanton it’ with things sacred, who at every breath break over the bounds of modesty, and outrage our sympathies with the true and the beautiful, for the sake of a momentary, and not unfrequently a shame-faced laugh?”

_Tristo._ “Such persons do themselves and others more injury than they think. Their incessant insults to all refinement and delicacy of feeling, if unresented and unguarded against, at length deaden and efface these sentiments. Bulwer says well of such, ‘Their humor debauches the whole moral system--they are like the Sardinian herb--they make you laugh, it is true, but they _poison you in the act_.’”

_Nescio._ “It is disgraceful that impurity should be an unequivocal characteristic of college wit. But it will be so, until some one shall demonstrate by his own example that there is no necessary connection, but rather an essential hostility between real humor and obscenity. But so long as it is easier to swim with the current than to buffet its dashings--so long as it is pleasanter to excite a hearty laugh, than encounter a cold sneer--so long as indolence and vacillation continue to be _descriptive marks_ of a student’s character--we need not hope for a change.”

_Pulito._ “Whoever would attempt to effect one, should remember the aphorism, ‘He ought to be well mounted who is for leaping over the hedges of custom.’”

_Tristo._ “If this license on the part of some deserves severe reprobation, the chilling churlishness of those, who can feel no sympathy with _pleasure_, be it ever so innocent--whose minds can admit but the single idea of the _useful_, and reject as trifling the elegant and refining--who, swallowed up in their admiration of moral beauty, lose sight of or depreciate intellectual symmetry, (forgetting that moral excellence, though it resemble in its value the priceless diamond, is not like it advantaged by a dull and roughened setting)--such, I say, must not pass without their share of censure, for they are in no slight degree the occasion, I will not say the cause, of the opposite vice in others.”

_Pulito._ “Such illiberality frustrates the praise-worthy exertions of all who indulge in it. It places them out of the circle of influence--their efforts can no more reach those whom they desire to affect, than (to use a magniloquent simile) the perturbations of the moons of Uranus can sway the Earth’s satellite in its orbit. But beside the unfortunate reaction of such principles, is not this cutting off, ‘at one fell swoop,’ all amusements, this tying down to one staid rule of _formal observance_, youth of every variety of taste, talent and temperament, and brought up under every complexion of circumstances--this curbing of all tastes and inclinations, not within the _lawgiver’s_ capabilities--is it not based upon error of judgment, and directed by something of inquisitorial arrogance?”

_Apple._ “I never listen to a specimen of such frosty philosophy, without recalling an anecdote, much to the point. It is found, originally, I believe, in one of Pope’s letters to Swift, though I read it somewhere else. ‘A courtier saw a sage picking out the best dishes at table. ‘How,’ said he, ‘are sages epicures?’ ‘Do you think, Sir,’ said the wise man, reaching over the table to help himself, ‘do you think, Sir, that God Almighty made all the good things of this world for fools?’”

_Tristo._ “The sage must have belonged to the sect _Deipnosophoi_, or ‘Supper-wise,’ whom D’Israeli mentions. His principles, however, will apply in their full extent, I think, to the purer pleasures of taste and wit and literature.”

_Pulito._ “Talk not to them of the ‘purer pleasures of taste, and wit, and literature,’ for these are their utter abomination--snares for the youthful mind--idle perversions of talent. Speak to them of the grand display of moral power in Shakspeare’s dramas, and for an unanswerable answer, they will point to a gross expression--and consistently enough too, for theirs is the morality of _words_. They cannot perceive that the _scope_ of all his principal plays is purely and symmetrically moral, or even religious--that they seldom violate the modesty of nature, though they may overstep the prudishness of an age when, ‘_La pudeur s’est enfuie des cœurs, et s’est refugiée sur les lévres._’--Modesty has fled from the heart, and taken refuge on the lips. They cannot admire the _overruling providence_, by which his untutored genius, apparently so wild and uncontrollable, has been unerringly directed to conformity with truth and virtue. In their esteem the pious Cowper would have been more worthy, had he devoted his talents to the _practical_ duties of ‘the clerk of the Commons,’ rather than have _wasted_ them in the unproductive pursuits of poetry.”

_Nescio._ “Well, let them enjoy their opinions, provided they do not meddle with others in the gratification of their taste, or profess to judge in matters which they so virulently decry. The nightingale may not quarrel with the discordant braying of the ass, till the ‘long-eared’ either attempt to ‘discourse sweet sounds’ himself, or criticise the melody of others.”

_Pulito._ “‘Aye, there’s the rub!’ None are more prompt in criticising, none more forward to condemn, than these same individuals.”

_Apple._ “Nothing ruffles the placidity of my temper so much, and so frequently, as the confidence with which some fellows, whose ignorance is absolute, pass judgment upon works of literature and taste. There are those, who cannot tell for their lives whether Walter Scott wrote Waverly or the Commentaries, or whether the author of Hudibras, the Reminiscences, and the Analogy, be not one and the same, who yet issue their unblushing firman upon any stray volume of poetry or romance, they may have chanced to pick up and gape through. I heard one, who could not count beyond ten, declare solemnly that he had no opinion of James, or Bulwer, and that J. K. Paulding could write better than either. Another, who had never seen a book, save the Family Bible, before he came to College, averred that Sterne, Smollett, Fielding, and Richardson united, never wrote any thing fit to be read by a man of good morals, or sound sense; and thought, moreover, that _Campbell’s_ Thanatopsis was far inferior to _Bryant’s_ Pleasures of Hope! And still another affirmed that the plays of Shakspeare even, were ruinous to the interests of morality, and that all the other dramatists of England ought to be buried under the ruins of the stage they support. Upon sifting the fellow, however, I found he had never read a play, saving the Tempest, Comedy of Errors, and a couple of diluted operas in the London stage!”

_Pulito._ “And yet these are they, who sit in daily judgment upon what they have neither the sense to comprehend, nor the delicacy to appreciate. These are they, who stigmatize every thing beautiful as a _rush_, and all that is novel to their narrow knowledge, as extravagant and wild. ’Tis a Bœotian criticising the dialect of Athens; a Scythian carping at the figures of Praxiteles. Shall the home-bred rustic, who thinks the middle of the sky directly above his head, and supposes that a walk of a day would bring his feet to the ‘blue concave,’ attempt to teach the life-long traveller the principles of society, and decide upon the manners and customs and wonders of the world? And yet it would be as reasonable to the full as the conduct of him, who, when his knowledge is confined to _particulars_, attempts to play the critic--a part, which, in its very nature, implies _generalization_ of the widest kind.”

_Tristo._ “How can the poor catechumen, who has not yet donned the robes of his novitiate, nor raised his eyes to the vestibule, much less stood in his sacrificial garments by the High Altar in the Temple of the Muses, presume to decide upon the value and lustre of the treasures its _adyta_ conceal? It is as if the puny whipster, who fumes and gesticulates upon the academic stage, and whose thoughts and language are ‘a combination of disjointed things,’ should attempt to span or analyze the harmonious vastness and sweeping magnificence of an Edmund Burke.”

_Pulito._ “There is likewise a species of grave wiseacres--sober fools, who are quite as senseless and less amusing than fools of the more fantastic turn. They think that wisdom dwells only upon sealed lips, and that strength of mind and sobriety of purpose, is _evidenced_ by nothing but a rueful face. These fellows (to use the old Greek phrase) ‘lift the eyebrows’ with a dull forthshowing of meditative wisdom, and a countenance

----‘of such a vinegar aspect
That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile,
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.’

Oh rather give me a whole-hearted fool, with his eternal grin, than one of these sombre _unimpressible_ concretions of torpedo-stricken clay.”

_Nescio._ “There are here, likewise, even as every where, many who can stop at no medium, but carry reasonable freedom to unwarrantable license. Because it is both pleasant and right to spend some time in general, and above all, in female society, some therefore, in their society fling away all their time, and, with their time, fling away character, and knowledge, and happiness, and worth. Because it is not well to be always bending over the learning of the present, and listening to the eloquence of the past, some therefore, double, wheel, march, and countermarch through these dusty streets during the long hours of a summer’s day, and when they catch a glimpse at the shadow of a female form, they experience a momentary heaven. Others, remembering that it is irrational to crucify the senses, and mortify the flesh, smoke, eat, and sleep, continually. Others, hearing that as well profit as delight may be reaped from the inspection of fancy’s fairy finger-work, are on the tiptoe of panting expectation for each miserable novel that falls lifeless from the press. And thus it was, thus it is, thus it will be.”

_Pulito._ “But idleness--idleness is the student’s bane. It is astounding how we throw away our time, and our best time--our spring-hour of life. Time is the medium of acquisition, and, losing _that_, we lose all. I am no Utopian in theory, nor visionary in practice: neither am I free from the follies I deplore. But the strides which _might_ be made in our collegiate course, would be mighty and amazing.”

_Nescio._ “I agree with you. Every ordinary mind, by more judicious application, might accomplish double what it does. I do not mean that just twice as much would be read, or acquired; but that the _mind_ would be twice as far advanced. It would not only have received twice the strength, and twice the beauty, from the studies it had actually traversed, but would be doubly fitted to grasp, conquer, and improve whatever might afterwards occur. The progress of the mind is in geometrical ratio. Every new and liberal idea, that is gained by a boy of twelve, is a capital which will return with yearly and enormous interest. It is analogous to the gaining of worldly wealth, where you must _hew_ your slow and narrow path from nothing to competence; but from competence to opulence, the road is broad and easy.”

_Pulito._ “I cannot divine the _modality_ (as the schoolmen might say) of some minds--the manner, in which they operate. For I know of those, who for four years have toiled with desperate firmness, and are what they were. They seem to have pursued a mill-horse track, without the remotest conception that there was aught else of value in the universe beside. Now I complain not of the rigor or of the nature of our course. Stern application is our only hope, and the course of authors we peruse, is perhaps as good as could be devised; but it is the _spirit_ with which they study. They consider what they here gain, not as a _mean_, but as an _end_. Every man, who would be ‘aut Cæsar, aut nullus,’ and whose eye goes forward to the ‘immensum infinitumque’ of Tully, _must generalize_--_must_ view things _relatively_--_must_ consider every thing, not as a whole, but as a part. If one possess this generalizing spirit, I care not how undivided be his attention to the college course; for I believe that there is in the books of the first three years, beauty and grandeur and weight, sufficient to justify, nay _demand_, almost _entire_ attention. For instance, to gain a perfect intimacy with Horace--not an intimacy with his words merely, and sentiments--but an intimacy with his beauties--with his _soul_--would require one month of the severest study; and yet such an intimacy is requisite to justify studying him at all: for if he is not to be appreciated--if that evaporating something, wherein he differs so widely from a dull Latin proser, is not to be seen and felt--you might as well have been reading Cato upon gardening, or Vitruvius upon architecture. But these fellows in studying a foreign tongue, give the general sense in hap-hazard English, without gaining any insight into the philosophy of mind, or the theory of language.”

_Apple._ “I think, moreover, that we ought to be more conversant with the sciences. Some of the details may, perhaps, be superfluous; but surely no one can claim to be a liberally-educated _gentleman_, without a general acquaintance with all, and a perfect knowledge of some of those departments. Whatever may have been my former obliquities, or short-comings in these studies, I am determined to retrieve them all. I have begun with attempting to square the circle, upon which great problem I have employed two weeks.”

_Nescio._ “Ha! Ha! do you approach the goal!”

_Apple._ “I cannot say that I do very rapidly; but I feel increased acuteness of perception. I think I might discover this grand secret, could I hit upon some method of reducing the circle to linear measurement. My nearest approximation is to make a circle of a string, and then quadrate its sides by the introvention of a square surface of board. Of course, I have the perimeter and square contents of the board, and if I could fit the latter accurately to the string, the work is done, and I am Apple the Great. But ‘hic labor, hoc opus est.’”

_Pulito._ “Ha! Ha! Be not wearied in well doing, Dumpling; you have opened on the right scent, (_erige aures, atque dirige gressus_.)”

_Tristo._ “But there is a more serious view to be taken of this matter, and one to which we must all open our eyes sooner or later, and well will it be for us if we take counsel while the storm is yet lowering, rather than look back with despairing, remorseful eye when ruin is in the retrospect. The day will come when he, who has squandered his abilities, and perverted his passions, will ‘begin to be in want,’ when mortified pride and conscious inferiority will ‘bite like a serpent, and sting like an adder’--a day, when the busy idleness, the trifling engagements, and the languid excuses, which now lull all suspicion of an _actual waste_ of time, will be forgotten, and nothing but the results will be visible. Then, one hasty, reverted glance, without any minute calculation, will inform us, that by our thriftless expenditure, when we might have economized to some purpose, we are _compelled_ to be idle and insignificant; when we _feel_ idleness to be a _disgrace_, and insignificance a _torment_. And why are not we alive to all this? Why do we not feel it, and _show_ that we feel it, by our actions, when we can thus in theorizing, ‘put on the spectacles of age?’ The melancholy maxim of the ancients explains it--

‘Quem Deus perdere vult, prius _dementat_.’

Who would have the punning epigram upon the Cardinal De Fleuri, true of him?

‘Floruit sine fructu,
Defloruit sine luctu.’

There is a merry jingling in the sound, but under it is conveyed a mournful meaning. Yet it shall be written of all, who, either trusting to their native genius, or destitute of honorable ambition, flutter away their existence in mimicry of the tiny circlets of the silly fly, instead of pluming their wings and nerving their energies, for a bold, a steady, and a deathless flight. Youth gives its stamp to life, and life to immortality--time is a type of eternity. I have somewhere seen the vastness of the latter illustrated by the image of a huge chronometer, of which the starry heavens were the dial-plate, its pendulum swinging in cycles of ten thousand years, and ringing to myriads of ages.”

In such and similar discourse, did they consume the lagging hours of night: now changing ‘from grave to gay, from lively to severe,’ and glancing over all the subjects and circumstances in which a student might feel a personal or an associated interest. They talked of silly affection, and of scheming selfishness, and condemned alike that vanity, which could exult in a new pair of gloves, or be elated by that ‘_shadow of a thing_,’ yclept a reputation; and having in view this one position, that what one _is_, and not what he _seems_, forms his character and moulds his destiny,

‘Still they were wise whatever way they went.’

And now, Reader, we have done. If from this rude, incongruous heap, which, in the throwing together, has afforded us both pleasure and profit, you have been able to extricate any thing of either, we are satisfied. If by our unworthy portraiture of cheerful mirth without the taint of vicious excitement, a single heart, sick of the _hollowness_ of dissipation, shall be seduced from its enticements--if one mind, till now swallowed in the vortex of current opinion, and dead to the merits of any save _fashionable_ authors, should be led to the study of chaster models, and the formation of a purer taste--if one soul, whose fountains have been sealed to the thousand springs of written or unwritten _poetry_, gushing up all around him, has been opened to their influences--or if any individuals of the various classes which we have ventured to describe, shall, by the image of their deformity, be frighted, ‘if not into greater goodness, at least into less badness’--_it is enough_.

Ego.

WHAT IS BITTER.

’Tis _bitter_ when beneath the midnight moon
We wander near the graves of those we love;
The lone heart sinks, and sighs for the bless’d boon
Of rest above.

When wearied age, with retrospective view,
Sees in the record of departed years
A tale of blighted hopes--he reads it through
With _bitter_ tears.

’Tis _bitter_ when our days are almost done,
To feel for wasted talents vain regret,
And see, with guilty fear, our life’s last sun
In sorrow set.

’Tis _bitter_ when revenge, with hellish art,
Lights in the breast her ever-scorching flame,
Stirs passion’s depths, and forms the tiger-heart,
No power can tame.

And _bitter_ is the heart, nay more, undone,
That finds long-cherished hopes in ruin end,
Crushed by the cruel treachery of one,
It deemed _a friend_.

Eta.

THE REASON OF ANIMALS NOT THE REASON OF MAN.

The organic kingdom seems to be little else than a system of means, resisting for a short period only the laws which govern inanimate matter, and then yielding to their power. Wherever the contemplative mind turns among the innumerable tribes of animals, which have been revealed by the scrutiny of man, it beholds them all struggling a little while for a sentient existence, and then sinking down, to form a part of that mingled mass, which has given them, and continues to give their successors, sustenance. It is not however animated matter only which thus for a moment attracts, and then passes from our observation. In each individual of all this numberless multitude, we behold the glimmering of intelligence, and in some species it seems to fall but little below the uncultivated reason of man; nay more, in their architecture, in their fabrics, in their modes of subsistence and defence, many are known to rival the utmost stretch of human ingenuity. This intelligence also, and this ingenuity, vanishes from before us. The theory has indeed been formed, that this appearance of reason, wherever found, or however feeble, is but the commencement of an immortal existence; but it is not thus that the mass of mankind view the subject. They are accustomed to look upon the whole animal kingdom as progressing to a period, when, not only the sensations of their bodies will cease, and their organs be left, without exception, to decay, but when all their intelligence and skill also will be swallowed up in annihilation. If then the reason of brutes is the reason of man, how strong, how complete the analogy, and how natural the conclusion, that the mind of man too, with the decease of his body ceases to exist! Living therefore as the most intelligent of these animals do, in the midst of us, and seeming to think and reason every day as really as ourselves, reason itself seems to be constantly persuading us that our end is the same. Indeed, if man differs from the brute only in the degree of intellect which he possesses, it is almost demonstrably certain, that annihilation or immortality alike await us. That animals are immortal, however, it is impossible to believe; for if this may be predicated of one individual, it may be predicated of every species in which animal life can be proved to exist. From the highest intelligence which exists among them, to the meanest insect that crawls in the dust, or the dullest inhabitant of a shell that clings to a rock, there is not a point where the line of separation can, with any degree of plausibility, be drawn, and we might almost extend the chain to the plant that shrinks from the touch, and the flower that follows the sun. This theory therefore we reject as unnatural and absurd. Hence we are reduced to the necessity of allowing, either that man is not immortal, or that his reason is different, not only in degree, but in its nature, from that of brutes. Although if the latter be true, it does not follow that the former is false, yet one of the most powerful arguments in support of it falls to the ground, and leaves other evidence to produce a conviction of the truth of its opposite. It is then an object of no little importance to discover, if possible, whether there is sufficient difference between the faculties of men and animals, to justify the conclusion that their destinies are so different.

In endeavoring to accomplish this object, we propose to consider brutes, in the first place, as they exist in their natural state, and afterwards, as they are when trained by man. Let us go, then, to the forest where the bird sits upon her nest, and the beast rests in his lair in undisturbed repose--or rather, if you please, where air, earth and water, teem with countless multitudes, all alive with activity, and all closely devoted to the peculiar employments for which Nature has fitted them. Compare now this busy scene, with that where the same elements groan under the burden imposed upon them by man, in his highest state of cultivation. Mark the aerial artist as she proceeds in the construction of her edifice, which in its execution and adaptation to its situation, defies all imitation by man. Without a model, and without instruction or experience, she fabricates a nest, which, in materials and construction, as near as circumstances permit, resembles those of all her predecessors. Where there is no possibility of a communication, precisely the same process is followed, and the same result is produced in every instance. Neither does age, observation or experience, produce the least improvement, but it more frequently happens, that the first product of this instinctive skill excels all that succeed. The same appears to be true of every species of the brute creation as we find them in the wilds of nature. All come into existence endowed with a species of intellect; a practical ingenuity, apparently far superior to any thing which man possesses, previous to observation.

If, therefore, the mental endowments of brutes are to be estimated by the readiness with which they arrive at certain practical results, man sinks below them. Among the whole human race, we find not a single instance of such instinctive knowledge. Man springs into existence of all animals the most helpless, and the most ignorant of the means of his support or his happiness. He is compelled to learn and direct every step of his course by observation and experience. He is left to deliberate and choose without any previous bias of the mind, and hence arises that vast diversity of manners and customs, scarcely greater between the most civilized and the most barbarous people, than between those who are buried in an equal depth of barbarism. On the other hand, throughout each particular species of the brute creation, all appear to be guided by one mind, and urged on by some irresistible power to the same definite ends. In the state in which we are now considering them, there is no variation in their habitudes, and seems to be no possibility of their choosing a different course from that so universally pursued. It is as natural to them as to live; as involuntary as their breath. This is instinct--a faculty to man denied--a pilot whose absence leaves him to the winds and waves of circumstances, while its presence impels as well as guides the animal creation in all their intricate manœvres.

There are traits, however, in which man and the most intelligent of other animals closely resemble each other. Present, for instance, a pleasing object to the eye of man, and the countenance will involuntarily kindle into a smile. Present to the half-famished wanderer an article of food, and the flowing saliva and the beseeching look, will testify, in spite of him, his eagerness to receive it. Tear from the fond mother her darling offspring, and plunge into its unprotected breast the glittering steel, and an agony unutterable will give her wings to fly to its rescue, and a thousand tongues to call for aid, or drive her to madness with despair.

This is a species of action, exhibited to an actual extent, perhaps, though in different ways, by both animals and men. It evinces a power which it is not in the nature of man wholly to resist, and under the full operation of which we use neither deliberation nor judgment. Such seems to be the power which gives rise to a large part of the actions of the most intelligent animals. It differs little in its nature from that instinct which guides them in their mechanical labors, and, in connection with it, is sufficient to account for all the phenomena which, as sentient beings, in their natural state, they exhibit to us. It is the influence of the passions--the feelings--the heart. In brutes, apart from instinct, (if this be not considered instinct,) it holds universal sway. The objects which excite the passions, and give rise to action, may not, indeed, in all cases be present. They may be called up by circumstances in all the vividness of reality, through the powerful memory with which brutes are endowed, yet the motives of the action are the same as if the real object supplied the place of the imaginary one. The principle is the same, and the result is still produced by the influence of the animal feelings, excited by sensible objects. But in man there is displayed a moving power which exists independently of instinct, of love, or hate, or hope, or fear, and which is capable of exercising a control over all, unless it be the very strongest of human passions. In the exercise of it, the passions are, as it were for the moment annihilated, and the intellect rises into a sphere where all tangible, sensible objects, vanish, and the mind converses with objects beyond the reach of mere animal perception.

The question may now arise, how are we to account for all that variety of movement and action, which animals acquire under the instruction of man? If instinct and passion are the only influences to which they are subject, we should reasonably suppose that their actions would be as invariable as the motives from which they originate. Had they never been subject to a higher order of beings, this would be found universally true. But that class of animals which we denominate domestic, and indeed almost all upon which the hand of man has laid its controlling influence, exhibit a species of action, which indicates a capability of improvement, and for which it would be impossible to account upon the principles which have been considered. There is another principle which is seen alike in animals and man, and might with propriety be denominated an artificial instinct. It is habit--a state in which we are led to act with reference to definite ends, and yet act involuntarily. By a frequent repetition of some motion of the hand, the foot or the whole person, we come at last to do the same unconsciously, and it is by this means that we perform so readily many of the intricate processes which the arts require. It is this which explains the secret of attachment to places and things. Even the prisoner, after a long-continued confinement to a gloomy cell, finds, at his departure, a magic charm binding him to the dreary habitation. The tender threads of affection have become entwined around the objects so constantly before him, and he is obliged to summon his reason, to break through the silvery web that is formed around his heart. Observation teaches us that animals are subject to the same influence. After a period of confinement and familiarity with man, the door of their enclosure may be opened, and almost without exception, they will leave it, only to return again of their own accord--not because a judgment teaches them that such a condition is preferable, but because a new influence is thrown over them which they cannot shake off. It is obviously upon this principle that they perform all the manœvres, and answer all the purposes, which they are made to do by man.

These three causes--instinct, passion, and habit, are believed to be sufficient to account for all the varieties of action exhibited by animals. We no where discover any of that power of origination, that freedom of thought and action, which renders man capable of endless improvement, and worthy of presiding over the brute creation. Nor any where do we find that power of abstraction, by which, from evidences of design which are displayed among terrestrial and celestial objects, we are able to reason our way up to an Infinite Being whom we have neither seen nor heard. These are the characteristics of man, which render him an accountable being--give him a conscience, and stamp him with the impress of immortality.

S.

DE LOPEZ THE BRAVE.

“The age of chivalry is gone.”--_Burke._