Part 11 (1/2)
UNITED STATES EXPLORING EXPEDITION.
Slight as the intercourse held by the Voyager with the South Sea Islands is, his narrative is always more prized by us than those of the missionary and traders, who, though they have better opportunity for full and candid observation, rarely use it so well, because their minds are biased towards their special objects. It is deeply interesting to us to know how much and how little G.o.d has accomplished for the various nations of the larger portion of the earth, before they are brought into contact with the civilization of Europe and the Christian religion. To suppose it so little as most people do, is to impugn the justice of Providence. We see not how any one can contentedly think that such vast mult.i.tudes of living souls have been left for thousands of years without manifold and great means of instruction and happiness. To appreciate justly how much these have availed them, to know how far they are competent to receive new benefits, is essential to the philanthropist as a means of aiding them, no less than it is important to one philosopher who wishes to see the universe as G.o.d made it, not as some men think he OUGHT TO have made it.
The want of correct knowledge, and a fair appreciation of the uncultivated man as he stands, is a cause why even the good and generous fail to aid him, and contact with Europe has proved so generally more of a curse than a blessing. It is easy enough to see why our red man, to whom the white extends the Bible or crucifix with one hand, and the rum-bottle with the other, should look upon Jesus as only one more Manitou, and learn nothing from his precepts or the civilization connected with them. The Hindoo, the South American Indian, who knew their teachers first as powerful robbers, and found themselves called upon to yield to violence not only their property, personal freedom, and peace, but also the convictions and ideas that had been rooted and growing in their race for ages, could not be otherwise than degraded and stupefied by a change effected through such violence and convulsion. But not only those who came with fire and sword, crying, ”Believe or die;”
”Understand or we will scourge you;” ”Understand _and_ we will only plunder and tyrannize over you,”--not only these ignorant despots, self-deceiving robbers, have failed to benefit the people they dared esteem more savage than themselves, but the worthy and generous have failed from want of patience and an expanded intelligence. Would you speak to a man? first learn his language. Would you have the tree grow?
learn the nature of the soil and climate in which you plant it. Better days are coming, we do hope, as to these matters--days in which the new shall be harmonized with the old, rather than violently rent asunder from it; when progress shall be accomplished by gentle evolution, as the stem of the plant grows up, rather than by the blasting of rocks, and blindness or death of the miners.
The knowledge which can lead to such results must be collected, as all true knowledge is, from the love of it. In the healthy state of the mind, the state of elastic youth, which would be perpetual in the mind if it were n.o.bly disciplined and animated by immortal hopes, it likes to learn just how the facts are, seeking truth for its own sake, not doubting that the design and cause will be made clear in time. A mind in such a state will find many facts ready for its use in these volumes relative to the South Sea Islanders, and other objects of interest.
STORY-BOOKS FOR THE HOT WEATHER.
Does any shame still haunt the age of bronze--a shame, the lingering blush of an heroic age, at being caught in doing any thing merely for amus.e.m.e.nt? Is there a public still extant which needs to excuse its delinquencies by the story of a man who liked to lie on the sofa all day and read novels, though he could, at time of need, write the gravest didactics? Live they still, those reverend seigniors, the object of secret smiles to our childish years, who were obliged to apologize for midnight oil spent in conning story-books by the ”historic bearing” of the novel, or the ”correct and admirable descriptions of certain countries, with climate, scenery, and manners therein contained,” wheat, for which they, industrious students, were willing to winnow bushels of frivolous love-adventures? We know not, but incline to think the world is now given over to frivolity so far as to replace by the novel the minstrel's ballad, the drama, and even those games of agility and strength in which it once sought pastime. For, indeed, _mere_ pa.s.s-time is sometimes needed; the nursery legend comprised a primitive truth of the understanding and the wisdom of nations in the lines,--
”All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy, But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
We have reversed the order of arrangement to suit our present purpose.
For we, O useful reader! being ourselves so far of the useful cla.s.s as to be always wanted somewhere, have also to fight a good fight for our amus.e.m.e.nts, either with the foils of excuse, like the reverend seigniors above mentioned, or with the sharp weapons of argument, or maintenance of a view of our own without argument, which we take to be the sharpest weapon of all.
Thus far do we defer to the claims of the human race, with its myriad of useful errands to be done, that we read most of our novels in the long sunny days, which call all beings to chirp and nestle, or fly abroad as the birds do, and permit the very oxen to ruminate gently in the just-mown fields.
On such days it was well, we think, to read ”Sybil, or the Two Worlds.”
We have always felt great interest in D'Israeli. He is one of the many who share the difficulty of our era, which Carlyle says, quoting, we believe, from his Master, consists in unlearning the false in order to arrive at the true. We think these men, when they have once taken their degree, can be of far greater use to their brethren than those who have always kept their instincts unperverted.
In ”Vivian Grey,” the young D'Israeli, an educated Englishman, but with the blood of sunnier climes glowing and careering in his veins, gave us the very flower and essence of fact.i.tious life. That book sparkled and frothed like champagne; like that, too, it produced no dull and imbecile state by its intoxication, but one witty, genial, spiritual even. A deep, soft melancholy thrilled through its gay mockeries; the eyes of nature glimmered through the painted mask, and a n.o.bler ambition was felt beneath the follies of petty success and petty vengeance. Still, the chief merit of the book, as a book, was the light and decided touch with which its author took up the follies and poesies of the day, and brought them all before us. The excellence of the foreign part, with its popular superst.i.tions, its deep pa.s.sages in the glades of the summer woods, and above all, the capital sketch of the prime minister with his original whims and secret history of romantic sorrows, were beyond the appreciation of most readers.
Since then, D'Israeli has never written any thing to be compared with this first jet of the fountain of his mind in the sunlight of morning.
The ”Young Duke” was full of brilliant sketches, and showed a soul struggling, blinded by the gaudy mists of fas.h.i.+on, for realities. The ”Wondrous Tale of Alroy” showed great power of conception, though in execution it is a failure. ”Henrietta Temple” Mr. Willis, with his usual justness of perception, has praised, as containing a collection of the best love-letters ever written; and which show that excellence, signal and singular among the literary tribe, of which D'Israeli never fails, of daring to write a thing down exactly as it rises in his mind.
Now he has come to be a leader of Young England, and a rooted plant upon her soil. If the performance of his prime do not entirely correspond with the brilliant lights of its dawn, it is yet aspiring, and with a large kernel of healthy n.o.bleness in it. D'Israeli shows now not only the heart, but the soul of a man. He cares for all men; he wishes to care wisely for all.
”Coningsby” was full of talent, yet its chief interest lay in this aspiration after reality, and the rich materials taken from contemporary life. There is nothing in it good after the original manner of D'Israeli, except the sketches of Eton, and above all, the n.o.ble schoolboy's letter. The picture of the Jew, so elaborately limned, is chiefly valuable as affording keys to so many interesting facts.
”Sybil” is an attempt to do justice to the claims of the laboring cla.s.ses, and investigate the duties of those in whose hands the money is at present, towards the rest. It comes to no result: it only exhibits some truths in a more striking light than heretofore. D'Israeli shows the taint of old prejudice in the necessity he felt to marry the daughter of the people to one _not_ of the people. Those worthy to be distinguished must still have good blood, or rather old blood, for what is called good needs now to be renovated from a homelier source. But his leaders must have _old_ blood; the fresh ichor, the direct flow from heaven, is not enough to animate their lives to the deeds now needed.
D'Israeli is another of those who give testimony in behalf of our favorite idea that a leading feature of the new era will be in new and higher developments of the feminine character. He looks at women as a man does who is truly in love. He does not paint them well, that is, not with profound fidelity to nature. But, ideally, he sees them well, for they are to him the inspirers and representatives of what is holy, tender, and simply great.
There are good sketches of the manufacturers at home, not the overseers, but the real makers.
Sue is a congenial activity with D'Israeli, but with clearer notions of what he wants. His ”De Rohan” is a poor book, though it contains some things excellent. But it is faulty,--even more so than is usual with him, in heavy exaggerations, and is less redeemed by brilliant effects, good schemes, and lively strains of feeling. The wish to unmask Louis XIV. is defeated by the hatred with which the character inspired him, the liberal of the nineteenth century. The Grand Monarque was really brutally selfish and ignorant, as Sue represents him; but then there _was_ a native greatness, which justified, in some degree, the illusion he diffused, and which falsifies all Sue's representation. It is not by an inventory of facts or traits that what is most vital in character, and which makes its due impression on contemporaries, can be apprehended or depicted. ”De Rohan” is worth reading for particulars of an interesting period, put together with accuracy and with a sense of physiological effects, if not of the spiritual realities that they represented.
”Self, by the Author of Cecil,” is one of the worst of a paltry cla.s.s of novels--those which aim at representing the very dregs in a social life, now at its lowest ebb. If it has produced a sensation, that only shows the poverty of life among those who can be interested in it. I have known more life lived in a day among factory girls, or in a village school, than informs these volumes, with all their great pretension and affected vivacity. It is not worth our while to read this cla.s.s of English novels; they are far worse than the French, morally as well as mentally. This has no merits as to the development of character or exposition of motives; it is a poor, external, lifeless thing.