Part 4 (1/2)
Does she forget how shone the happy eyes When they beheld her?--how the eager tongue Plied its swift oar through wave-like harmonies, To reach her where she sung?
How at her sacred feet I cast me down?
How she upraised me to her bosom fair, And from her garland shred the first light crown That ever pressed my hair?
Though dust is on the leaves, her breath will bring Their freshness back: why lingers she so long?
The pulseless air is waiting for her wing, Dumb with unuttered song.
If tender doubt delay her on the road, Oh let her haste, to find that doubt belied!
If shame for love unworthily bestowed, That shame shall melt in pride.
If she but smile, the crystal calm will break In music, sweeter than it ever gave, As when a breeze breathes o'er some sleeping lake And laughs in every wave.
The ripples of awakened song shall die Kissing her feet, and woo her not in vain, Until, as once, upon her breast I lie, Pardoned and loved again.
ON POPULAR KNOWLEDGE.
BY GEORGE S. HILLARD.
Against all inst.i.tutions for the diffusion of knowledge among the community, an objection is often urged that they can teach nothing thoroughly, but only superficially, and that modest ignorance is better than presumptuous half-knowledge. How frequently is it said that ”a little learning is a dangerous thing.” This celebrated line is a striking instance of the vitality which may be given to what is at least a very doubtful proposition by throwing it into a pointed form. If anything be a good at all, it is a good precisely in proportion to the extent in which it is possessed or enjoyed. A great deal of it is better than a little, but a little is better than none. No one says or thinks that a little conscience, or a little wisdom, or a little faith, or a little charity is a dangerous thing. Why then is a little learning dangerous? Alas, it is not the little learning, but the much ignorance which it supposes, that is dangerous!
We also frequently hear it said, that the general diffusion of popular knowledge is unfavorable to great acquisitions in any one individual. This is a favorite dogma with those persons whose views are all retrospective, who are ever magnifying past ages at the expense of the present, and who will insist upon riding through life with their faces turned toward the horse's tail instead of his head. ”We have smatterers and sciolists in abundance,” say they, ”but where are the giant scholars of other days?”
Dr. Johnson once said, in reply to a remark upon the general intelligence of the people of Scotland, that learning in Scotland was like bread in a besieged city, where every man gets a mouthful, but none a full meal. He also observed in a conversation held with Lord Monboddo, that learning had much decreased in England, since his remembrance; to which his lords.h.i.+p remarked, ”you have lived to see its decrease in England; I, its extinction in Scotland.” The fallacy of views like these consists in taking it for granted that there is always just about the same aggregate amount of knowledge in the world, and that only the ratio of distribution is changed. But there is no such a.n.a.logy between learning and material substances. The wealth of the mind is not like gold, which must be beaten out the finer, as the surface to be covered by it is more extensive. As to the alleged superiority of past ages, in anything essential, I am more than skeptical. I hold rather that of all good things, learning included, there is as much in the world now as there ever was--not to say more. The great scholars of Europe in our time are not inferior to the greatest of their predecessors. Even in cla.s.sical literature and antiquities, the searching, a.n.a.lyzing and investigating spirit of our age has poured new light upon the remote past, and rendered the labors of former generations useless. By elevating the general standard, it is true that there is less distance between the common mind and the deeply learned. The scholars of the middle ages seem the higher, from the low level of ignorance from which they rise. They are like mountains shooting abruptly from the plain.
Our scholars seem to have reached an inferior point of elevation, because the level of the general mind has come nearer to them, as mountain peaks lose somewhat of their apparent height when they spring from a raised table land.
ON RECEIVING A
PRIVATELY PRINTED VOLUME OF POEMS
FROM A FRIEND.
BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
A modest bud matured mid secret dews, May yield its bloom beside some hidden path, Full of sweet perfumes and of rarest hues While few may note the beauty which it hath--
And yet perchance some maiden, wandering there, May bend beside it with a loving look, Or by the streamlet place it in her hair; And smile above her image in the brook.
A bird with pinions beautiful, and shy, May sing scarce noted mid the noisier throng; Or 'scaping earth, take refuge in the sky And though concealed still charm the air with song.
Yet haply some enamored ear may hark, And deem it sweetest of the birds that sing; Or in his heart still praise the unseen lark That leads his fancies toward its heavenward wing.
A star in some sequestered nook on high, In its deep niche of blue may calmly s.h.i.+ne, While careless eyes that wander o'er the sky, May only deem the brightest orbs divine.