Volume I Part 8 (1/2)
'The best criticism on those sermons which proclaim so loudly the dignity of human nature was from our friend E.S. She said, coming out from Dr. Channing's church, that she felt fatigued by the demands the sermon made on her, and would go home and read what Jesus said,--”_Ye are of more value than many sparrows.” That_ she could bear; it did not seem exaggerated praise.'
'The Swedenborgians say, ”that is _Correspondence_,” and the phrenologists, ”that it is _Approbativeness,_” and so think they know all about it. It would not be so, if we could be like the birds,--make one method, and then desert it, and make a new one,--as they build their nests.'
'As regards crime, we cannot understand what we have not _already_ felt;--thus, all crimes have formed part of our minds. We do but recognize one part of ourselves in the worst actions of others. When you take the subject in this light, do you not incline to consider the capacity for action as something widely differing from the experience of a feeling?'
'How beautiful the life of Benvenuto Cellini! How his occupations perpetually impelled to thought,--to gus.h.i.+ngs of thought naturally excited!'
'Father lectured me for looking satirical when the man of Words spake, and so attentive to the man of Truth,--that is, of G.o.d.'
Margaret used often to talk about the books which she and I were reading.
G.o.dWIN. 'I think you will be more and more satisfied with G.o.dwin. He has fully lived the double existence of man, and he casts the reflexes on his magic mirror from a height where no object in life's panorama can cause one throb of delirious hope or grasping ambition. At any rate, if you study him, you may know all he has to tell. He is quite free from vanity, and conceals not miserly any of his treasures from the knowledge of posterity.
M'LLE. D'ESPINa.s.sE. 'I am swallowing by gasps that _cauldrony_ beverage of selfish pa.s.sion and morbid taste, the letters of M'lle D'Espina.s.se. It is good for me. How odious is the abandonment of pa.s.sion, such as this, unshaded by pride or delicacy, unhallowed by religion,--a selfish craving only; every source of enjoyment stifled to cherish this burning thirst. Yet the picture, so minute in its touches, is true as death. I should not like Delphine now.'
Events in life, apparently trivial, often seemed to her full of mystic significance, and it was her pleasure to turn such to poetry. On one occasion, the sight of a pa.s.sion-flower, given by one lady to another, and then lost, appeared to her so significant of the character, relation, and destiny of the two, that it drew from her lines of which two or three seem worth preserving, as indicating her feeling of social relations.
'Dear friend, my heart grew pensive when I saw The flower, for thee so sweetly set apart, By one whose pa.s.sionless though tender heart Is worthy to bestow, as angels are, By an unheeding hand conveyed away, To close, in unsoothed night, the promise of its day.
'The mystic flower read in thy soul-filled eye To its life's question the desired reply, But came no nearer. On thy gentle breast It hoped to find the haven of its rest; But in cold night, hurried afar from thee, It closed its once half-smiling destiny.
'Yet thus, methinks, it utters as it dies,-- ”By the pure truth of those calm, gentle eyes Which saw my life should find its aim in thine, I see a clime where no strait laws confine.
In that blest land where _twos_ ne'er know a _three_, Save as the accord of their fine sympathy, O, best-loved, I will wait for thee!”'
III.
STUDIES.
”Nur durch das Morgenthor des Schonen Drangst du in der Erkenntniss Land; An hohen Glanz sich zu gewohnen Uebt sich, am Reize der Verstand.
Was bei dem Saitenklang der Musen Mit sussem Beben dich, durchdrang, Erzog die Kraft in deinem Busen, Die sich dereinst zum Weltgeist schw.a.n.g.”
SCHILLER.
”To work, with heart resigned and spirit strong; Subdue, with patient toil, life's bitter wrong, Through Nature's dullest, as her brightest ways, We will march onward, singing to thy praise.”
E.S., _in the Dial_.