Part 12 (1/2)
We fear the reader will have to wade through a great deal of ”rubbish”
in ”Festus” before he gets at the theology. However, there it is, in sufficient quant.i.ties to give dignity to any book. In seriousness, it may compete with Pollok's ”Course of Time.” In ”splendor and power,” we feel ourselves safe in saying that, as sure as the sun s.h.i.+nes, it cannot be outdone in the English tongue, thus far, short of Milton. So there is something for all cla.s.ses of readers, and we hope it will get to their eyes, albeit Boston books are not likely to be detected by all eyes to which they belong.
To ourselves the theology of this writer, and the conscious design of the poem, have little interest. They seem to us, like the color of his skin and hair, the result of the circ.u.mstances under which he was born.
Certain opinions came in his way early, and became part of the body of his thought. But what interests us is not these, but what is deepest, universal--the soul of that body. To us the poem is
”... full of great dark meanings like the sea:”
and it is these, the deep experiences and inspirations of the immortal man, that engage us.
Even the poem shows how large is his nature--its most careless utterance full of grandeur, its tamest of bold n.o.bleness. This, that truly engages us, he spoke of more forcibly when the book first went forth to the world:--
”Read this, world. He who writes is dead to thee, But still lives in these leaves. He spake inspired; Night and day, thought came unhelped, undesired, Like blood to his heart. The course of study he Went through was of the soul-rack. The degree He took was high; it was wise wretchedness.
He suffered perfectly, and gained no less A prize than, in his own torn heart, to see A few bright seeds; he sowed them, hoped them truth.
The autumn of that seed is in these pages.”
Such is, in our belief, the true theologian, the learner of G.o.d, who does not presumptuously expect at this period of growth to bind down all that is to be known of divine things in a system, a set of words, but considers that he is only spelling the first lines of a work, whose perusal shall last him through eternity. Such a one is not in a hurry to declare that the riddles of Fate and of Time are solved, for he knows it is not calling them so that will make them so. His soul does not decline the great and persevering labors that are to develop its energies. He has faith to study day by day. Such is the practice of the author of Festus, whenever he is truly great. When he shows to us the end and plan of all things, we feel that he only hides them from us. He speaks only his wishes. But when he tells us of what he does really know, the moods and aspirations of fiery youth to which all things are made present in foresight and foretaste,--when he shows us the temptations of the lonely soul pining for knowledge, but unable to feel the love that alone can bestow it,--then he is truly great, and the strings of life thrill oftentimes to their sublimest, sweetest music.
We admire in this author the unsurpa.s.sed force and distinctness with which he casts out single thoughts and images. Each is thrown before us fresh, deep in its impress as if just s.n.a.t.c.hed from the forge. We admire not less his vast flow, his sustained flight. His is a rich and s.p.a.cious genius; it gives us room; it is a palace home; we need not economize our joys; blessed be the royalty that welcomes us so freely.
In simple transposition of the thought from the mind to the paper, that wonder, even rarer than perfect,--that is, simple expression, through the motions of the body, of the motions of the soul,--we dare to say _no_ writer excels him. Words are no veil between us and him, but a luminous cloud that upbears us both together.
So in touches of nature, in the tones of pa.s.sion; he is absolute. There is nothing better, where it is good; we have the very thing itself.
We are told by the critics that he has no ear, and, indeed, when we listen for such, we perceive blemishes enough in the movement of his line. But we did not perceive it before, more than, when the aeolian was telling the secrets of that most spirit-like minister of Nature that bloweth where it listeth, and no man can trace it, we should attempt to divide the tones and pauses into regular bars, and be disturbed when we could not make a tune.
England has only two poets now that can be named near him: these two are Tennyson and the author of ”Philip Van Artevelde.” Tennyson is all that Bailey is not in melody and voluntary finish, having no less than a Greek moderation in declining all undertakings he is not sure of completing. Taylor, n.o.ble, an earnest seer, a faithful narrator of what he sees, firm and sure, sometimes deep and exquisite, but in energy and grandeur no more than Tennyson to be named beside the author of Festus.
In inspiration, in prophecy, in those flashes of the sacred fire which reveal the secret places where Time is elaborating the marvels of Nature, he stands alone. It is just true what Ebenezer Elliott says, that ”Festus contains poetry enough to set up fifty poets,”--ay! even such poets, so far as richness of thought and imagery are concerned, as the two n.o.ble bards we have named.
But we need call none less to make him greater, whose liberal soul is alive to every shade of beauty, every token of greatness, and whose main stress is to seek a soul of goodness in things evil. The book is a precious, even a sacred book, and we could say more of it, had we not years ago vented our enthusiasm when it was in first full flow.
FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY.[20]
WE hear much lamentation among good people at the introduction of so many French novels among us, corrupting, they say, our youth by pictures of decrepit vice and prurient crime, such as would never, otherwise, be dreamed of here, and corrupting it the more that such knowledge is so precocious--for the same reason that a boy may be more deeply injured by initiation into wickedness than a man, for he is not only robbed of his virtue, but prevented from developing the strength that might restore it. But it is useless to bewail what is the inevitable result of the movement of our time. Europe must pour her corruptions, no less than her riches, on our sh.o.r.es, both in the form of books and of living men. She cannot, if she would, check the tide which bears them hitherward; no defences are possible, on our vast extent of sh.o.r.e, that can preclude their ingress. We have exulted in premature and hasty growth; we must brace ourselves to bear the evils that ensue. Our only hope lies in rousing, in our own community, a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration, that shall give us strength to a.s.similate this unwholesome food to better substance, or cast off its contaminations. A mighty sea of life swells within our nation, and, if there be salt enough, foreign bodies shall not have power to breed infection there.
We have had some opportunity to observe that the worst works offered are rejected. On the steamboats we have seen translations of vile books, bought by those who did not know from the names of their authors what to expect, torn, after a cursory glance at their contents, and scattered to the winds. Not even the all but all-powerful desire to get one's money's worth, since it had once been paid, could contend against the blush of shame that rose on the cheek of the reader.
It would be desirable for our people to know something of these writers, and of the position they occupy abroad; for the nature of their circulation, rather than its extent, might be the guide both to translator and buyer. The object of the first is generally money; of the last, amus.e.m.e.nt. But the merest mercenary might prefer to pa.s.s his time in translating a good book, and our imitation of Europe does not yet go so far that the American milliner can be depended on to copy any thing from the Parisian grisette, except her cap.
We have just been reading ”Le Pere Goriot,” Balzac's most celebrated work; a remarkable production, to which Paris alone, at the present day, could have given birth.
In other of his works, I have admired his skill in giving the minute traits of pa.s.sion, and his intrepidity, not inferior to that of Le Sage and Cervantes, in facing the dark side of human nature. He reminds one of the Spanish romancers in the fearlessness with which he takes mud into his hands, and dips his foot in slime. We cannot endure this when done, as by most Frenchmen, with an air of recklessness and gayety; but Balzac does it with the stern manliness of a Spaniard.
But the conception of this work is so sublime, that, though the details are even more revolting than in his others, you can bear it, and would not have missed your walk through the Catacombs, though the light of day seems stained afterwards with the mould of horror and dismay.
Balzac, we understand, is one of that wretched cla.s.s of writers who live by the pen. In Paris they count now by thousands, and their leaves fall from the press thick-rustling like the November forest. I had heard of this cla.s.s not without envy, for I had been told pretty tales of the gay poverty of the Frenchman--how he will live in garrets, on dry bread, salad, and some wine, and spend all his money on a single good suit of clothes, in which, when the daily labor of copying music, correcting the press, or writing poems or novels, is over, he sallies forth to enjoy the theatre, the social soiree, or the humors of the streets and cafes, as gay, as keenly alive to observation and enjoyment, as if he were to return to a well-stocked table and a cheerful hearth, encompa.s.sed by happy faces.
I thought the intellectual Frenchman, in the extreme of want, never sunk into the inert reverie of the lazzaroni, nor hid the vulture of famine beneath the mantle of pride with the bitter mood of a Spaniard. But Balzac evidently is familiar with that which makes the agony of poverty--its vulgarity.