sitting at the feet of Zeno in the shadow | written is merely a deliberate exercise, the of the Portico." On my expressing a natural surprise, he added, smiling, Why, at such times the only view which honorable members give me of what goes on in the world is through their intercalumniations." I smiled at this after a moment's reflection, and he added gravely, "The most punctilious refinement of manners is the only salt that will keep a democracy from stinking; and what are we to expect from the people, if their representatives set them such lessons? Mr. Everett's whole life has been a sermon from this text. There was, at least, this advantage in duelling, that it set a certain limit on the tongue." In this connection, I may be permitted to recall a playful remark of his upon another occasion. The painful divisions in the First Parish, A. D. 1844, occasioned by the wild notions in respect to the rights of (what Mr. Wilbur, so far as concerned the reasoning faculty, always called) the unfairer part of creation, put forth by Miss Parthenia Almira Fitz, are too well known to need more than a passing allusion. It was during these heats, long since happily allayed, that Mr. Wilbur remarked that "the Church had more trouble in dealing with one sheresiarch than with twenty heresiarchs," and that the men's conscia recti, or certainty of being right, was nothing to the women's. When I once asked his opinion of a poetical composition on which I had expended no little pains, he read it attentively, and then remarked, "Unless one's thought pack more neatly in verse than in prose, it is wiser to refrain. Commonplace gains nothing by being translated into rhyme, for it is something which no hocus-pocus can transubstantiate with the real presence of living thought. You entitle your piece, 'My Mother's Grave,' and expend four pages of useful paper in detailing your emotions there. But, my dear sir, watering does not improve the quality of ink, even though you should do it with tears. To publish a sorrow to Tom, Dick, and Harry is in some sort to advertise its unreality, for I have observed in my intercourse with the afflicted that the deepest grief instinctively hides its face with its hands and is silent. If your piece were printed, I have no doubt it would be popular, for people like to fancy that they feel much better than the trouble of feeling. I would put all poets on oath whether they have striven to say everything they possibly could think of, or to leave out all they could not help saying. In your own case, my worthy young friend, what you have gymnastic of sentiment. For your excel- Here Had It is unwise to insist on doctrinal points as vital to religion. The Bread of Life is wholesome and sufficing in itself, but gulped down with these kick-shaws cooked up by theologians, it is apt to produce an indigestion, nay, even at last an incurable dyspepsia of scepticism. One of the most inexcusable weaknesses of Americans is in signing their names to what are called credentials. But for my interposition, a person who shall be nameless would have taken from this town a recommendation for an office of trust sub scribed by the selectmen and all the voters of both parties, ascribing to him as many good qualities as if it had been his tombstone. The excuse was that it would be well for the town to be rid of him, as it would erelong be obliged to maintain him. I would not refuse my name to modest merit, but I would be as cautious as in signing a bond. [I trust I shall be subjected to no imputation of unbecoming vanity, if I mention the fact that Mr. W. indorsed my own qualifications as teacher of the high-school at Pequash Junction. J. H.] When I see a certificate of character with everybody's name to it, I regard it as a letter of introduction from the Devil. Never give a man your name unless you are willing to trust him with your reputation. There seem nowadays to be two sources of literary inspiration, fulness of mind and emptiness of pocket. I am often struck, especially in reading Montaigne, with the obviousness and familiarity of a great writer's thoughts, and the freshness they gain because said by him. The truth is, we mix their greatness with all they say and give it our best attention. Johannes Faber sic cogitavit, would be no enticing preface to a book, but an accredited name gives credit like the signature of a note of hand. It is the advantage of fame that it is always privileged to take the world by the button, and a thing is weightier for Shakespeare's uttering it by the whole amount of his personality. It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how patient with overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no injury, while the other may be their ruin. You suspect a kind of vanity in my genealogical enthusiasm. Perhaps you are right; but it is a universal foible. Where it does not show itself in a personal and private way, it becomes public and gregarious. We flatter ourselves in the Pilgrim Fathers, and the Virginian offshoot of a transported convict swells with the fancy of a cavalier ancestry. Pride of birth, I have noticed, takes two forms. One complacently traces himself up to a coronet ; another, defiantly, to a lapstone. The sentiment is precisely the same in both cases, only that one is the positive and the other the negative pole of it. Seeing a goat the other day kneeling in order to graze with less trouble, it seemed to me a type of the common notion of prayer. Most people are ready enough to go down on their knees for material blessings, but how few for those spiritual gifts which alone are an answer to our orisons, if we but knew it ! Some people, nowadays, seem to have hit upon a new moralization of the moth and the candle. They would lock up the light of Truth, lest poor Psyche should put it out in her effort to draw nigh to it. No. X. MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR DEAR SIR, -Your letter come to han' Thet knows wut 's comin', gall or Ther' 's times the world doos look so queer, An' then agin, for half a year, People are apt to confound mere alert ness of mind with attention. The one is but the flying abroad of all the faculties to the open doors and windows at every passing rumor; the other is the concentration of every one of them in a single focus, as in the alchemist over his alembic at the moment of expected projection. Attention is the stuff that mem-You're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, ory is made of, and memory is accumulated genius. Do not look for the Millennium as imminent. One generation is apt to get all the wear it can out of the cast clothes of the last, and is always sure to use up every paling of the old fence that will hold a nail in building the new. No preacher 'thout a call 's more solemn. Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingle- An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, I Run helter-skelter into Yankee. Where's Peace? I start, some clearblown night, When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number, An', creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white, Walk the col' starlight into summer; Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer Than the last smile thet strives to tell O' love gone heavenward in its shim mer. I hev ben gladder o' sech things Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover, They filled my heart with livin' springs, But now they seem to freeze 'em over; Sights innercent ez babes on knee, Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, Jes' coz they be so, seem to me To rile me more with thoughts o' battle. In-doors an' out by spells I try; Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin', But leaves my natur' stiff and dry Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin'; An' her jes' keepin' on the same, Calmer 'n a clock, an' never carin', An' findin' nary thing to blame, Is wus than ef she took to swearin'. Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant, But I can't hark to wut they 're say'n', With Grant or Sherman ollers pres ent; The chimbleys shudder in the gale, Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flap. pin' Like a shot hawk, but all 's ez stale Under the yaller-pines I house, When sunshine makes 'em all sweet. scented, An' hear among their furry boughs The baskin west-wind purr con tented, While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, Further an' further South retreatin'. |