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PUTNAM’S MAGAZINE
OF
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, ART,
AND
NATIONAL INTERESTS.
Vol. AL—MAY—1870.—No. XXIX.
OUR CELTIC INHERITANCE.
One of the oldest specimens of Gaelic
poetry tells how Oisin was once enticed
by fairies into a cavern, where, by some
of their magical arts, he was for a long
time imprisoned. To amuse himself
during his confinement, he was accus
tomed to whittle the handle of his spear,
and cast the shavings into a stream
which flowed at his feet. His father,
Finn, after many vain attempts to find
him, came one day to the stream, and,
recognizing the shavings floating on its
surface as portions of Oisin’s spear, fol
lowed the stream to its source and dis
covered his son.
The legend may illustrate the fate of
the people to whose literature it belongs.
It has been a perplexing question, what
became of that old Titan, who led the
van in the migrations of races west
ward, and whom Aristotle describes “ as
dreading neither earthquakes nor inun
dations ; as rushing armed into the
waves; as plunging their new-born in
fants into cold water ”—a custom still
common among the Irish—“ or clothing
them in scanty garments.”
Two thousand years ago, we know
from Ephorus and other classic geogra
phers, the Celts occupied more territory
than Teuton, Greek, and Latin com
bined. They were yronderful explor
ers; brave, enterprising, delighting in
the unknown and marvellous, they
pushed eagerly forward, over mountain
and river, through forest and morass,
until their dominion extended from the
western coasts of Ireland, France, and
Spain, to the marshes around St. Peters
burg and the frontiers of Cappadocia:
in fact, they were masters of all Europe,
except the little promontories of Italy
and Greece; and these were not safe
from their incursions. Six centuries
before Christ, we find them invading
Northern Italy, founding Milan, Verona,
Brixia, and inspiring them with a spirit
of independence which Roman tyranny
could never entirely subdue. Two cen
turies later, they descend from their
northern homes as far as Rome, become
masters of the city, kill the Senate, and
would have taken the capitol, had not
Camillus finally repulsed them. A cen
tury later, they pour into Greece in a
similar way, and would surely have
overrun that country, had not their pro
found reverence for the supernatural—
a characteristic not yet lost—led them
to turn back awed by the sacred rites
of Delphos. Their last and most formi
dable appearance among the classics
was in that famous campaign—a cen
tury before Caesar—when the skill and
bravery of Marius saved the Roman re
public.
Entered, in the year 1870. by G. P. PUTNAM & SON, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the U. S. for the Southern District of
VOL. V.—34
N. T.
�514
Putnam’s Magazine.
[May,
Then the scales turn : the Romans be in the Anglo-Saxon the wonderful dis
come the invaders, and the Celts suffer coveries of modem science have made
I ruinous defeats. In that great battle so manifest, that men are beginning at
with Quintus Fabius Maximus, Csesar last to recognize them; and, during the
tells the Gauls two hundred thousand of past century, some of our most noted
their countrymen were slain. Through scholars have been patiently endeavor
nearly all the vast territory they once ing to trace them to their original
inhabited, the Roman empire became source.
supreme; and where Rome failed to
Philology, although one of the young
gain the supremacy, the persistent Teu est of our sciences, has been of the
tons, pressing closely on their rear, gen greatest service in putting us on the
erally completed the conquest. Every right track in our search after this pio
where, at the commencement of the neer of nations. By its subtle art of
Christian era,—except in the compara drawing from words—those oldest patively insignificant provinces of Ireland, limpsestic monuments of men, their
Scotland, Wales, and Armorica,—this original inscriptions—it has cleared up
great Celtic people vanish so suddenly many a mystery in which the old Celt
and so completely from history, that their seemed hopelessly enveloped. Those ad
former existence soon seems like one of venturous tribes who first forced their
the myths of a pre-historic age. In those way through the western European wil
regions where the Celts retained their derness, left memorials of their presence
identity, prolonged political and re which no succeeding invaders have been
ligious animosities have tended to throw able to efface, in the names they gave
into still greater oblivion all mementoes to prominent landmarks; so that “ the
of their early greatness. Their English mountains and rivers,”—to use a meta
rulers have treated them as members of phor of Palgrave’s,—“still murmur
an inferior race. Glorying in his popu voices ” of this denationalized people.
lar misnomer, the Anglo-Saxon has The Alps, Apennines, Pyrenees, the
generally ignored all kinship with those Rhine, Oder, and Avon,—all bear wit
Britons whom his ancestors subdued.
ness to the extensive dominion of the
“ Little superior to the natives of the race by whom these epithets were first
Sandwich Islands; ”—says Lord Macau bestowed. By means of these epithets,
lay in his positive way, and dismisses the the Celts have been traced from their
subject as unworthy farther notice. original home in Central Asia in two
“ When the Saxons arrived, the ancient diverging lines of migrations. Certain
Britons were all slain, or driven into tribes, forcing their way through north
the mountains of Walessay our com ern Europe, seem to have passed from
mon school histories. “ Aliens in the Cimbric Chersonese—or Denmark—
speech, in religion, in blood; ”—says into the north of Ireland and Scotland;
Lord Lyndhurst, with traditional viru others, taking a southerly route, finally
lence, in that speech which Sheil so ably entered the south of Great Britain from
answered.
the northern coasts of France and Spain.
Still, scraps from Oisin’s spear have The British Isles became thus the termi
been floating down the current of An nus of two widely-diverging Celtic mi
glo-Saxon life. In language, words grations.
have arisen; in politics, literature, and
Naturally, the different climatic influ
religion, ideas and sentiments have been ences to which they were subject dur
expressed, bearing unmistakably the ing their separate wanderings, tended
' impress of the old Titan, and showing to produce a variety of dialects and
conclusively that his spirit, although so popular characteristics. Those old Brit
long concealed, was still influencing and ons, however, whom Csesar first intro
inspiring even the descendants of Heng- duces to history, all belonged substan
ist and Horsa.
tially to one people. Zeuss, after a
These evidences of a Celtic presence patient drudgery of thirteen years in
�1870.]
Oue Celtic Inheritance.
515
investigating the oldest Celtic manu- names you find like Lewis, Morgan,
scripts, has proved beyond question, in Jenkins, Davis, Owen, Evans, Hughes,
his Grammatica Celtica, not only that Bowen, Griffiths, Powel, and Williams.
the Cymry, or modern Welsh, are of the Scarcely less numerous are the Gaelic
same family with the Gael or modem Camerons, Campbells, Craigs, Cunning
Irish and Scotch, but that all the Celtic hams, Dixons, Douglasses, Duffs, Dun
people are only another division of cans, Grahams, Grants, Gordons, Mac
that great Indo-European family out of donalds, Macleans, Munros, Murrays,
which the nations of Europe originally Reids, Robertsons, and Scotts.
sprang. More extensive philological in
Although the application of these
vestigations have indicated a still near surnames has been a custom only dur
er relationship between the Celt and ing the past four hundred years, still
the Anglo-Saxon. In Great Britain, they show that, at some period, we
Celtic names linger not only upon all must have received a large infusion of
the mountains and rivers, with scarcely Celtic blood.
an exception, but upon hundreds and
Physiology has also something to say
hundreds of the towns and villages, on this subject. A careful comparison
valleys and brooks, and the more insig of the different physical types has
nificant localities of the country.
shown that the Celtic is found almost
How frequently Aber and Inver, Bod as frequently among the English as the
and Caer or Car, Strath and Ard, ap Saxon. The typical Saxon of olden
pear in combination as the eye glances times had the broad, short oval skull,
over a map of England. Is not this fact with yellowish or tawny red hair. The
most naturally explained by the suppo old Celt had the long oval skull, with
sition that Briton and Saxon grew up black hair. Climate undoubtedly modi
together in the same localities so inti fied to some extent these types, the
mately, that the latter found it most northern tribes of the Celts possessing
convenient to adopt the names of places lighter hair than the southern; still,
which the former had already bestowed ? these were generally the distinguishing
The Celtic root with Saxon suffix or physical characteristics of the two
prefix, so often greeting us in any de races.
scription of English topography, cer
How, then, have these characteristics
tainly hints at a closer amalgamation been perpetuated ? Retzius, one of the
of the two races than school histories best Swedish ethnologists, after making
are wont to admit. So the language extensive observations and comparisons,
we daily speak, frequently as it has gives it as his opinion that the prevail
been denied, is found strongly impreg ing form of the skull found throughout
nated with Celtic words, and many of England is the long oval, or the same
these our most idiomatic and expres which is found still in Scotland, Ire
sive. Balderdash, banner, barley, bas land, and Wales. His statements are
ket, bicker, bother, bully, carol, cudgel, confirmed by many other ethnologists.
dastard, fudge, grudge, grumble, har Somehow, after crossing the German
lot, hawker, hoyden, loafer, lubber, Ocean, the broad, roundish-headed Sax
nudge, trudge,—may serve as speci on became “ long-headed.” And his hair
mens. The unwritten dialects which changed. Yellow, or tawny red, is by
prevail in so many parts of England, no means now the prevailing colof
give still more numerous examples of among the Anglo-Saxons. Any English
this Celtic element.
assembly will show a much greater pro
If we turn now to our family sur portion of dark-haired than light-haired
names, we shall also find indications people. Different habits and occupa
of a similar race amalgamation. The tions have undoubtedly contributed
Cymric Joneses are only equalled by the somewhat to effect this change. Ger
Saxon Smiths. Take any of our ordi mans and English have alike grown
nary directories, and how many Cymric darker during the past one thousand
�516
Putnam’s Magazine.
years; still, the marked difference which
to-day exists between the Anglo-Saxon
and his brethren on the continent is
too great to be accounted for,—except
through some decided modification of
the race relation. The Celts are the
only race to whom such modifications
can with any propriety be attributed.
Whence came, then, this popular opin
ion that the old Britons were either de
stroyed or expelled from the country by
their Saxon conquerors ? Are the state
ments of history and the conclusions
of modem science so contradictory in
this matter ? Let us see. At the Ro
man invasion, 55 b. c., Great Britain
seems to have been thickly settled.
Csesar says: “ The population is infi
nite, and the houses very numerous.”
Eh one battle, 80,000 Britons were left
dead on the field; and in one campaign
the Romans lost 50,000 soldiers. It
took the Roman legions nearly three
hundred years to bring the southern
portion of the island under subjection;
—and then that great wall of Severus—
seventy-four miles long, eight feet thick,
twelve feet high, with eighty-one cas
tles and three hundred and thirty tur
rets,—was erected to secure the conquest
from the warlike tribes of the north—a
stupendous undertaking, surely, to pro
tect a province so worthless as Macau
lay asserts!
Ptolemy enumerates no less than
twenty British confederacies—with great
resources—south of this wall, and eigh
teen upon the north. During the five
centuries of Roman dominion, they
steadily increased. There was not suffi
cient admixture of Latin blood to
change essentially the Celtic character
of the race. The Latins came to con
trol, not to colonize. When Rome, for
Her own protection, was obliged to recall
her legions, thus relinquishing the prov
ince which had cost so much time and
treasure to secure, we are distinctly told
most of the Latins returned, taking
their treasures with them.
What, then, became of the numerous
Britons who remained? Their condi
tion was deplorable. Accustomed to
rely upon Roman arms for defense and
[May,
Roman magistrates for the administra
tion of law, they were suddenly deprived
of both defenders and rulers. While
Latin civilization had developed their
resources enough to make them a more
tempting prize to their warlike neigh
bors, it had rendered them almost inca
pable of guarding the treasures they
had gained. They had grown unwar
like—had lost both weapons and their
use.
Moreover, a crowd of rival aspirants
at once began a contest for the vacant
throne. It is not difficult to believe
the statements of our earliest historians,
that many, thus threatened by external
foes and internal dissensions, were ready
to welcome as allies the Saxon maraud
ers, preferring to receive them as friends
than to resist them as foes. The Saxons
evidently were determined to come; and
the Briton,—with characteristic craft,—
concluded to array Pict and Saxon
against each other, hoping, doubtless,
both would thus become less formi
dable.
Those Saxons also came in detach
ments, and at different intervals. They
were generally warriors, the picked men
of their tribes. Finding a better coun
try, and a people without rulers, they
quietly determined to take possession
of both. Their final ascendency was
gained, not by superiority of numbers,
but by superiority of will and of arms.
It seems utterly incredible to suppose,
that, in their little open boats, they
could have transported across the Ger
man Ocean a multitude great enough to
outnumber the original British inhabi
tants. All accounts indicate that they
were numerically inferior. Nearly one
hundred and fifty years of hard fight
ing were necessary before Saxon author
ity could take the place of the Roman.
The Welsh historical Triads tells us
that whole bodies of the Britons entered
into “ confederacy with their con
querors”—became Saxons. The Saxon
Chronicle, which, meagre and dry as it
is, still gives the truest account we have
of those dark periods, states that whole
counties, and numerous towns within
the limits of the Heptarchy,—nearly five
�1870.]
Our Celtic Inheritance.
hundred years after the first Saxon in
vasion,—were occupied almost entirely
by Britons; and that there were many
■hsurrections of semi- Saxonized subjects
in the different kingdoms. Bede, speak
ing of Ethelfred as the most cruel of
the Saxon chieftains, says he compelled
the Britons to be “tributary,” or to
leave the country. The great mass of
the people seem to have chosen the for
mer condition, and to have accepted
their new rulers as they had done the
old. There is not the slightest evidence
of any wholesale extermination by the
Saxons, or of any extensive Celtic emi
gration, except two passages found in
Gildas, our earliest historian. In one
of these, he speaks of the Britons as
having been slain like wolves, or driv
en into mountains; and in the other, of
a company of British monks guiding
an entire tribe of men and women to
Armorica, singing,—as they crossed the
channel in their vessels of skin,—“ Thou
hast given us as sheep to the slaughter.”
Gildas’ statements are so contradic
tory and erroneous, as every historical
student knows, that they must be re
ceived with great allowance. He evi
dently hated the Saxons, and shows a
disposition, in all his descriptions, to
exaggerate the injuries his countrymen
had received. Undoubtedly the Saxons
often exhibited the savage ferocity com
mon in those days, killing and enslav
ing their enemies without much com
punction ; undoubtedly many of the
British, who had been Christianized,
fled from the pagan violence of their
conquerors to the more congenial coun
tries of Armorica and Wales; but that
most of them were obliged thus to
choose between a violent death or ex
ile, is sufficiently disproved, I think, by
the evidence already given.
The adoption of the Saxon language
is also sometimes cited as evidence of
the destruction of the old Britons;
but conquerors have very often given
language to their subjects, even when
the subjects were more numerous than
themselves.
Thus the Latin was
adopted in Gaul; thus the Arabic
followed the conquests pf the Mussul
517
mans. Yet there is nothing but this
argument from language and the state
ments of Gildas—which later histo
rians have so blindly copied—to give
any foundation to the common opin
ion of an unmixed Saxon population.
AU other historical records and infer
ences indicate that the Anglo-Saxon
—when that name was first applied, in
the ninth century—represented as large
a proportion of Celtic as of Teutonic
blood.
Future invasions effected little change
in this proportion. The Danes, indeed,
increased somewhat the Teutonic ele
ment, although they made fearful havoc
among the old Saxons; but the Nor
mans brought with them fully as many
Gauls as Norsemen; and since the Nor
man conquest, the Celtic element has
rather increased than diminished.
It is fitting that the Lia Fail, or stone
of destiny, which Edward I. brought
from Scotland, and upon which the
Celtic kings for many generations had
been crowned, should still form the
seat of the English throne, and thus
become a symbol—although undesigned
—of that Celtic basis which really un
derlies the whole structure of Anglo?
Saxon dominion.
If it be admitted, then, that the Celt
formed so large a proportion of those
races out of which the English people
were finally composed, it becomes an.
interesting question whether any ot
their spiritual characteristics became
also the property of their conquerors.
What were these old Celts ? Did their
blood enrich, or impoverish, the Saxon ?
Did they leave us any inheritance be
yond certain modifications of speech
and form ? ^An answer to these ques
tions may also serve to confirm the con
clusions already stated.
We do not get much satisfaction to
such inquiries from contemporary his
torians in other lands. The self-com
placent classic troubled himself little
about neighboring barbarians, provid
ed they did not endanger his safety
or tempt his cupidity. That they
traded in tin with the seafaring Phoe
nicians, three hundred years before
�518
Putnam’s Magazine.
Christ; that, in. the time of Csesar and
Augustus, they had many barbarous
customs, but had also their chariots,
fleets, currency, commerce, poets, and
an order of priests who were supreme
in all matters pertaining to religion,
education, and government;—these, in
brief, are the principal facts gleaned
from the meagre accounts of Greek and
Roman writers concerning the inhabi
tants of the Ultima Thule of the ancient
world. Saxon historians add little to
this information. From the time of
Gildas to Macaulay, they have generally
viewed the Celt through the distorted
medium of their popular prejudices.
The Celt, then, must be his own in
terpreter ; yet the Celt of to-day, after
suffering for so many centuries a treat
ment which has tended to blunt and
destroy his best talent, and after long
association with foreign thoughts and
customs, is by no means the best repre
sentative of his pagan ancestors.
In some way—through their own pro
ductions, if possible—we must get at
the old Celts themselves before we can
determine with any certainty how many
of our popular characteristics can be
attributed with any propriety to such a
source. Aside from their language,
which we have already alluded to, their
oldest works are those weird megalithic
ruins—scattered all over western Eu
rope, and most numerous in Brittany
and Great Britain. That these were of
Celtic origin, seems indicated both by
their greater number and perfection in
those countries where the Celt retained
longest his identity, and by certain cor
respondences in form and masonry with
the earliest known Celtic structures,—
the cells of Irish monks,4-and the fa
mous round towers of Ireland.
Those round towers,—after being vari
ously explained as fire-towers, astro
nomical observatories, phallic emblems,
stylite columns, &c.,—Dr. Petrie has very
clearly proved were of ecclesiastical ori
gin, built between the fifth and thir
teenth centuries, and designed for bel
fries, strongholds, and watch-towers.
Yet these cellsand towers alike exhibit
the same circular form and dome roof,
[May,
the same ignorance of the arch and ce
ment, which are revealed in many of the
older and more mysterious ruins.
If we suppose a mythical people of
the stone age preceded the Indo-Euro
peans in their wanderings,—and there
seems no need of such a supposition,
since it has been so clearly shown by
some of our best pre-historic archaeolo
gists, that the transition from imple
ments of stone to iron has frequently
taken place among the same people,—it
may still be said these ruins are entirely
dissimilar to the productions of such a
people in other lands: they mark a
higher degree of civilization, and show
clearly, in certain cases, the use of me
tallic instruments. Some of them re
veal also great mechanical skill, fore
thought, and extraordinary command
of labor. Most of these ruins are at
least two thousand years old. They
have been exposed constantly to the
destructive influences of a northern cli
mate ;—and any one who has noticed the
ravages which merely six centuries have
wrought upon even the protected stone
work of English cathedrals, can appre
ciate the power of these, atmospheric
vandals;—they have suffered even great
er injury from successive invaders; and
still few can gaze upon them to-day
without being impressed with their
massive grandeur.
Of the vast ruins of Carnac, in Brit
tany, four thousand great triliths still
remain; some of these are twentv-two
feet high, twelve feet broad, and six
feet thick, and are estimated to weigh
singly 256,800 pounds. Says M. Cam
bray : “ These stones have a most ex
traordinary appearance. They are iso
lated in a great plain without trees or
bushes ; not a flint or fragment of stone
is to be seen on the sand which supports
them; they are poised without founda
tion, several of them being movable.”
In Abury and Stonehenge there are
similar structures, not as extensive, in
deed, but giving evidence of much
greater architectural and mechanical
skill. They are found also in different
parts of Great Britain and the Orkney
Islands and the Hebrides.
�T870/]
Oub Celtic Inhebitanoe.
How were these immense stones transported—for there are no quarries within
seveml miles—and by what machinery
could the great lintels of Stonehenge,
for instance, have been raised to their
present position ?
We may smile incredulously at the
learned systems of Oriental mythology
which enthusiastic antiquaries have dis
covered in these voiceless sentinels of
forgotten builders, but can we question
the evidence they give of scientific pro
ficiency—superior to any ever attained
by a “ race of savages ” ?
' Their cromlechs, or tombs, exhibit
clearly the same massiveness. The Irish
people still call them f£ giant beds,” but
they give us no additional information
concerning the people whose skeletons
they contain ;—unless there be a sugges
tion in the kneeling posture in which
their dead were generally buried, of
that religious reverence which charac
terized them when alive.
In the Barrows—or great mounds of
earth—which they seem to have used at
a later period as sepulchres, we do get
a few more interesting hints concerning
their early condition. In these, large
numbers of necklaces, swords, and va
rious ornaments and weapons in gold
and bronze,—some of exquisite work
manship and original design,—have been
found, showing at least that they had
the art of working metals, and many
of the customs of a comparatively civil
ized life. All these relics, however,
although interesting in themselves, and
confirming the few statements of classic
historians, only serve to correct the pop
ular notion concerning the savage con
dition of the old Britons. They leave
us still in ignorance of those mental and
spiritual characteristics which we are
most anxious to discover.
By far the most extensive and valu
able material for determining the char
acter of the ancient Celt, although the
most neglected, is presented in their lit
erature. Few persons I imagine who have
given the subject no special investiga
tion, are aware how extensive this litera
ture is, as found in the Gaelic and Cym
ric tongues. In the library of Trinity
519
College, Dublin, there are one hundred
ajid forty manuscript volumes. A still
more extensive collection is in the Royal
Irish Academy. There are also large coll
lections in the British Museum, and in
the Bodleian Library and Imperial libra
ries of France and Belgium, and in the
Vatican;—besides numerous private col
lections in the possession of the nobility
of Ireland, Great Britain, and on the
continent.
To give an idea of these old manu
scripts, O’Curry has taken as a standard
of comparison the Annals of the Four
Masters, which was published in 1851,
in seven large quarto volumes contain
ing 4,215 closely-printed pages. There
are, in the same library, sixteen other
vellum volumes, which, if similarly
published, would make 17,400 pages;
and six hundred paper manuscripts,
comprising 30,000 pages. Mac Firbis’
great book of genealogies would alone
fill 1,300 similar pages; and the old
Brehon laws, it is calculated, when pub
lished, will contain 8,000 pages.
The Cymric collection, although less
extensive, still comprises more than one
thousand volumes. Some of these, in
deed, are only transcripts of the same
productions, yet many of them are
original works.
A private collection at Peniath num
bers upward of four hundred manu
scripts ; and a large number are in the
British Museum, in Jesus College, and
in the libraries of various noblemen of
England and Wales.
The Myvyrian manuscripts, collected
by Owen Jones, and now deposited in
the British Museum, alone amount to
forty-seven volumes of poetry, in 16,000
pages, and fifty-three volumes of prose,
in about 15,300 pages; and these com
prise only a small portion of the manu
scripts now existing. Extensive as are
these collections, we know, from trust
worthy accounts, the Danish invaders
of Ireland, in the ninth and tenth cen-d
turies, made it a special business to tear,
burn, and drown—to quote the exact
word—all books and records which
were found in any of the churches,
dwellings, or monasteries of the island.
�520
Putnam’s Magazine.
The great wars of the seventeenth cen
tury proved still more destructive to
the Irish manuscripts. The jealous
Protestant conquerors burnt all they
could find among the Catholics. A
great number of undiscovered manu
scripts are referred to and quoted in
those which now exist. From their
titles, we judge more have been lost
than preserved. So late as the sixteenth
century, many were referred to as then
in existence, of which no trace can now
be found. Some of them may still be
hidden in the old monasteries and cas
tles. The finding of the book of Lis
more is an illustration of what may
have been the fate of many. In 1814,
while the Duke of Devonshire was re
pairing his ancient castle of Lismore,
the workmen had occasion to reopen a
doorway which had been long closed, in
the interior of the castle. They found
concealed within it a box containing an
old manuscript and a superb old crozier. The manuscript had been some
what injured by the dampness, and por
tions of it had been gnawed by rat3.
Moreover, when it was discovered, the
workmen carried off several leaves as
mementoes. Some of these were after
ward recovered, and enough now re
mains to give us valuable additions to
our knowledge of Irish customs and tra
ditions. It is by no means improbable
that others, similarly secreted in monas
teries and private dwellings, may still
be discovered.
In O’Clery’s preface to the “ Succes
sion of Kings ’’—one of the most valu
able of the Irish annals—he says:
“ Strangers have taken the principal
books of Erin into strange countries
and among unknown people.” And
again, in the preface to the “ Book of
Invasions ”: “ Sad evil! Short was the
time until dispersion and decay over
took the churches of the saints, their
relics, and their books; for there is not
to be found of them now that has not
been carried away into distant coun
tries and foreign nations; carried away,
so that their fate is not known from
that time hither.”
When we consider, thus, the number
[May,
of literary productions which have been
either lost or destroyed, and the num
ber still remaining, we must admit that
there has been, at some period, great
intellectual activity among the Celtic
people. How far back these produc
tions may be traced, is a question which
cannot now be discussed properly, with
out transgressing the limits assigned to
this article. We can do little more, at
present, than call attention to the ex
tent of these writings, and their impor
tance. Many of them are unquestion
ably older than the Canterbury Tales;
they give us the clearest insight into the
character of a people once great and
famous, but now almost lost in oblivion;
and, although containing a large amount
of literary rubbish, they still comprise
numerous poems, voluminous codes of
ancient laws, extensive annals—older
than any existing European nation can ex
hibit in its own tongue, and a body of
romance which no ancient literature has
ever excelled, and from which modern
fiction drew its first inspiration.
Had this literature no special relation
to our own history, we might naturally
suppose it would repay investigation
for the curious information it contains
of a bygone age, and the intellectual
stimulus it might impart. The condi
tion of Ireland, to-day, is also of such
importance to England and America—
the Irish Celt, in this nineteenth cen
tury, enters so prominently into our
politics and questions of reform, that
every thing is worth investigating which
can reveal to us more clearly his charac
ter and capacity.
But these productions of his ances
tors have for us a still deeper signifi
cance. They are peculiarly our inheri
tance. Celt or Teuton, or both, we
must mainly be ; our ancestry can natu
rally be assigned to no other races.
Much in us is manifestly not Teutonic.
The Anglo-Saxon is quite a different
being from all other Saxons. Climate
and occupation may explain, in a meas
ure, the difference, but not entirely.
Some of the prominent traits which
Englishmen and Americans alike pos
sess, belong so clearly to the German,
�1870.1
The Tale
of a
Comet.
K21
I
or Teutonic people, in every land, that the sentiments of their people, then
we do not hesitate to ascribe them at these old manuscripts become of incal
once to our Saxon blood;—but what culable value in explaining our indebt
shall we do with others equally promi edness to those Britons, who, as history
nent, and naturally foreign to Teutons and science alike indicate, contributed
so essentially to our popular forma
everywhere ?
Were these found peculiarly charac tion.
On some future occasion, we may pre
terizing the Celts from their earliest his
tory, might we not—must we not—with sent such illustrations of their antiquity
equal propriety also ascribe them to our and general character, as will make it
appear still more clearly that the AngloCeltic blood 1
If, then, it can be shown—and we Saxon is—what we might expect the
think it can—that, not only before the offspring of two such varied races to
time of Gower and Chaucer, but also become—the union of the varied char
before Caedmon uttered the first note acteristics of Celt and Teuton, stronger,
of English song, Celtic wits and poets braver, more complete in every respect,
were busy expressing in prose and verse for his diverse parentage.
THE TALE OF A COMET.
IN TWO PARTS:
I.
“ Berum nature tsacra sun non simul tradit. Initiates nos credimus; in vestibulo ejus haeremus.”
Seneca. Nat. Quaest. vii.
young man, my dear Bernard, because I
have confidence in the evenness of your
The year in which the comet came I disposition, and the steady foothold you
was living by myself, at the windmill. have obtained upon the middle way of
Early in May I received from my friend life. He is an anomaly, and therefore
must be treated with prudence, and a
the Professor the following letter:
tender reserve such as we need not
“College Observatory, May 5.
exercise toward the rough-and-tumble
“Mv Dear Bernard.—I want to ask youth of the crowd. In fact, this young
a favor, which, if you please to grant it, I man Baimond Letoile is a unique and
honestly think will contribute sensibly perfect specimen of that rare order of
to the advancement of science, without beings, which, not being able to anato
causing much disorder to your bachelor mize and classify, owing to the infre
life. I want you, in fact, to take a pupil. quency of their occurrence, we men of
There has come to us a very strange Science carelessly label under the name
young man, who knows nothing but the of Genius, and put away upon our shelves
mathematics; but knows them so thor for future examination. Letoile is cer
oughly and with such remarkable and tainly a genius, and when properly in
intuitive insight, that I am persuaded he structed, I believe he will develop a
is destined to become the wonder of this faculty for the operations of pure science
age. His name is Raimond Letoile; he such as has no parallel, unless we turn
is about twenty years old, and his nature, to the arts and compare him with Ra
so far as I can determine upon slight ac phael and Mozart. He is a born mathe
quaintance, is singularly amiable, pure, matician. And when I say this, I do
and unsophisticated. His recommenda not mean that he simply has an extraor
tions are good, he has money sufficient for dinary power of calculation, like Colburn
all his purposes, and I think you will find and those other prodigies who have
him a companion as well as a pupil, proved but pigmies after all — I mean
who, while giving you but little trouble, that he possesses an intuitive faculty for
will reward you for your care by the the higher analysis, and possesses it to
contemplation of his unexampled pro such a wonderful degree that all of us
gress. I want you to take charge of this here stand before him in genuine amazeI.—THE rEOFBSSOB’s LETTER.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Our Celtic inheritance
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [513]-521 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Putnam's Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and National Interests. Vol. V, No. XXIX, May 1870. Printed in double columns.
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[G. P. Putnam's Sons]
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1870
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G5564
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<p class="western"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" name="graphics1" width="88" height="31" border="0" alt="88x31.png" /></p>
<p class="western">This work (Our Celtic inheritance), identified by <span style="color:#0000ff;"><span lang="zxx"><u>Humanist Library and Archives</u></span></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p>
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Text
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English
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[Unknown]
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History
Celts
Conway Tracts
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Text
isro.j
The Fourth of September
way from the palace-gate at Peking to
the chief -yvharf at T’hoong Chow—
eighteen miles; and it has been made
“ for the nonce,” that the young Empe
ror may accompany to the boat the rec
ords of his father’s reign, which have
been transcribed into Manchoorian, and
are to be sent in state to Tartary._
Well, that seems to cap the climax 1
Such a road can be made for such a
purpose; but the highways of the na
tion, the people's roads and canals, can
not be kept in moderate repair 1 Let
us escape! “ Hire, dear friend, true
Caledonian master of the dialects, hire
for us the first boat you can secure, and
let us float away down this stream,
muddy in itself, but charming in our
eyes because it carries us away from a
place where we have been more perma
nently provoked, and less instructed
and entertained, than at any other spot
on earth, Aden, perhaps, excepted.”
in
Paris.
553
Easief said than done. A vociferous
negotiation with two boat-owners; a
persistent struggle of two hours’ con
tinuance, to get clear of the crust and
crowd of a hundred junks or more
jammed up in the narrow stream; a
final success and a joyful liberation, so
that we could seat ourselves quietly un
der our pent-house cabins, and feel that
we were quietly and constantly nearing
the outlet to our discomforts. And so
we went on, float, float, floating down
the stream, with two men lazily scull
ing, or two others slowly tracking our
boat round the countless bends of this
uninteresting water-course. It takes
four days to ascend the stream, but two
days and nights brought us to Tien
tsin, and on board an American steam
er again. Never enjoyed any thing
more, in all my life-time, than to re
embark on this symbol of a new order
of things.
*
THE FOURTH OF SEPTEMBER IN PARIS.
FAMILIAR LETTER FROM A YOUNG AMERICAN.
Paris, Sept. 4th, 1870.
Nous l’avons la RSpublique.” Like a
man who awakes from a long night
I write the date to my letter with mare, and, relieved from the weight that
precision, for it is a great day.
pressed him down and stifled him, gives
I have heard the Republic proclaimed himself up to the joy of living, of breath
in Paris!
ing, though but a moment. “ Enfin,
Proclaimed in the face of the news of j’ai bien un jour pleinement.” I hav§
the overwhelming defeat of the French, heard men say, “ je suis pret a; mourir
the destruction of MacMahon’s army, demain s’il le faut.”
the capture of the Emperor, the threat
“ Ich habe genossen das erdliche Gluck,
ened march of the Prussians upon Paris.
Ich habe geliebt et gelebt!”
France, humiliated by invasion, out
raged by Prussian barbarities, beaten,
But I will relate in detail what has
driven back, betrayed, almost ruined, passed. The French authorities, carry
France, or at least Paris, gives itself ing out their system of treating the
up, not to panic, but to a perfect out people like a set of babies, have shroud
burst of joy, to the jubilation of a fete- ed all military operations in mystery;
day. It crowns the statue of Strasbourg for at least two weeks there has been
with flowers, it promenades on the no official news from the front, and all
Place de la Concorde, the Rue de Rivoli, newspaper or private intelligence strictly
before the Hotel de Ville, as if to salute forbidden. They do not even publish
the return of a triumphant army. It lists of the killed and wounded! So for
forgets Prussia, it forgets even the Em some time we have only known that
peror, it is wild with delight, crying, the army of Bazaine was shut up in
“ Vive la Republique, a toi -citoyen. Metz, completely surrounded by a great
My Dear Father :
�554
Putnam’s Magazine.
ellipse of the Prussian armies, while
MacMahon, with 100,000 men, was
directed to the Ardennes, intending to
sweep round by the Belgian frontier, and
effect a junction with Bazaine. Stras
bourg resists one bombardment, Toul
another. Alsatia and Lorraine are pil
laged without resistance by the Prussian
soldiers and the Badois peasants,
Chalons evacuated, the Garde Mobile
withdrawn towards Paris, the National
Guards armed, but everywhere hindered
by the jealousy of the Government, who
forbids guns, organization, every thing,
any thing. Better a thousand times lose
France to the Prussians, than save it to
the Republicans; on the other hand the
people replied with the soldiers, “Chassons les Prussians d’abord, mais nous
regions nos comptes aprbs.”
Great confidence was felt in MacMahon’s army. Last Sunday, the 29th,
it was understood that fighting had be
gun in the Ardennes, it was impossible
to know with what result. Towards the
middle of the week we began to receive
the Prussian telegrams, announcing a
victory—in the absence of the slightest
information on their own side. (When
the Corps LSgislatif called on Palikao,
the Minister of "War, to explain how
matters stood, he replied curtly that he
did not mean to be bothered any more
with answering questions.)
The Paris journals interpreted these
telegrams as they best could. On Thurs
day the Gaulois published an elaborate
article to prove that the Prussians had
only defeated a small detachment of
MacMahon’s army, left on purpose to
amuse them, and cover the retreat of the
main body across the Meuse.
On Friday, MacMahon was wounded,
half his army put hors de combat, the
other half, forty thousand men, surren
dered with the town of Sedan, and the
valiant Emperor, hastening to salute his
destiny, had given himself up prisoner to
the King of Prussia. Having plunged
the country into the war, betrayed its
cause and its resources, defeated, it is
said, by his obstinate incapacity this very
campaign of MacMahon, the savior of
France, true to the traditions of the
[Nov.
Bonapartes, had no thought paramount
to the desire of saving himself, and sur
rendered to the Prussians, from whom he
expected more consideration than from
the enraged Frenchmen. So perishes a
harlequin, and all his paraphernalia of
Empire collapses as suddenly as a wind
bag pricked by a pin. One thinks of
Carlyle’s description of the death of
Louis XV, and all Du Barrydom packing
its trunks in the antechamber, ready to
whisk off to the infinite nothing whence
it had emerged, leaving a strong smell
of sulphur behind it.
The news was only transmitted to
Paris Saturday afternoon. At the ses
sion of the Corps LSgislatif, Palikao
announced reverses, but not the whole
truth : perhaps he did not know it. An
extraordinary session was convoked for
the night, and the House assembled at
twelve o’clock. There Palikao declared
the situation, and it was noticeable that
the captivity of the Emperor was passed
over as an unimportant incident in the
general disaster. He concluded his re
port, significantly enough, by admitting
that the council of ministers had no
suggestion to offer in the extreme gravity
of the situation. Upon that Jules Favre,
quite simply, as if taking up the reins of
power that the agonizing empire had
let fall, pronounced the famous res lution for the dechSance of Louis Napoleon
Bonaparte and his dynasty. “ His words
were received by a profound silence,”
said the Figaro, who, already prepared
to greet the rising sun, had turned its
back on the Empire, and forgotten to
criticize the “ mauvais esprit” of this
resolution emanating from the Left Wing.
Of all the Right, only one voice was
raised to defend the old regime. Pinard,
deputy from the North, observed, “We
have not the right to proclaim the dtichSance.”
Nobody paid any attention to this ob
servation. Jules Favre, “ out of pity
for the nakedness of the situation of the
Right,” says La Cloclie, proposed to ad
journ consideration of his proposition
till the next morning, and the session
closed. “ This scrupule alone,” continues
La Cloche, “ saved the Empire from
�1870.]
The Fourth
of
September isr Paris.
being condemned, like the royalty, in
the night.”
All night the wildest rumors circu
lated through Paris, which was over
whelmed with consternation at the dis
aster, coming after such confident pre
dictions of victory. I went to the
hospital in the morning, and M. Bernutz, the chief, came to the ward in
such a state of prostration as was really
pitiful to see. He seemed literally over
whelmed, and quite incapable of making
the visit, or examining the new patients.
Only one thing roused him, and showed
the ruling passion strong in death, or
despair. A patient remarked that she
had been formerly treated by M. Nouat,
an old rival of Bernutz in his own
specialty; at that he brightened up to
retort vivaciously, “Oh, if M. Nouat
has cured you it is a proof that you
were not very ill I ”—a remark which
greatly disgusted the patient.
Returned to the R----- s. I found al
ready another current of ideas upper
most. For them, the defeat of Mac
Mahon was a fact primed by that of the
captivity of the Emperor, and of the
proposition for the dechgance. Every
one was rushing to the Place de la Con
corde in front of the Corps Lggislatif;
my little American friends and myself
took a carriage and rushed also.
AVe arrived at half-past one; the af
fair had already been decided.
At
noon the crowd had begun to gather,
and found the bridge leading from the
Place to the Corps Lggislatif guarded by
sergeants de ville, supported by a double
line of municipal guards—the regular
army. The crowd grew more and more
dense, and, emboldened by the conscious
ness of the National Guard behind them,
(which had only just been armed), called
upon the policemen to surrender. At
this moment the crowd was unarmed,
the National Guard nowhere in sight;
but, on -the other hand, the policemen
felt the dissolution of all the powers
above them ; they had no word of com
mand, they knuckled under completely,
gave way, melted into invisibility. As
a proof of fraternization, they lighted
[Cigars, and patting the blouses friendlily
555
on the back, declared themselves their
best friends, “ honnStes gens, bons Rgpublicains.” “ Allez-vous-en, changez vos
habits, nous n’avons pas de casse-tgtes,
nous autres,” was the reply. The ad
vice was followed; by one o’clock not a
policeman was to be seen in Paris.
The soldiers of the Municipal were
even more easily vanquished. The crowd
put out feelers and talked with them.
An officer rode up on horseback. “ Vous
savez,” dit-il, “vous n’avez rien b
craindre de nous,” and with that the
second barrier melted away like the
first, the foot-soldiers mingled with the
crowd, the cavalry moved from in front
of the bridge, and the people rushed over.
The building itself was surrounded by
the National Guard. But they reversed
their guns, “ mettaient la crosse en air,”
as a signal that they intended no firing,
and the crowd ran up the steps, precipi
tated itself into the antechambers, and
awaited the arrival of the Deputies that
were to decide the fate of the nation—
fate already decided.
The President, Schneider, came out
and made a speech. His voice was
drowned in the tumult. “ Allez-vousen, allez-vous-en, nous n’avons pas
besoin de vous.” Deputies of the Right
tried to make a stand. “Allez-vousen,” was the pitiless cry. “ Vous avez
perdu la France,” cried E---- - R----- .
“ Laissons-nous la sauver,” and they de
camped one after another. One old
fellow tried the heroic style; opening
his coat, he placed his hands on his ex
panse of waistcoat, “ J’ofire mon corps
it vos coups,” he declaimed, “ vieille
charogne,” (old carcass.) “ Vous n’avons
pas besoin de vous.” And he made
tracks also.
Finally some members of the Left
tried to persuade the people to leave.
“ The House is about to deliberate on
the gravest questions; we wish to pro
claim the dgchgance, but in order.”
“ Ge n’est pas assez la dgchgance, il faut
proclamer la Rgpublique. Vive la Rgpublique! Vive la Rgpublique! ” and then
with solid fists they began to batter
against the solid oaken doors that shut
in the Chamber of Deputies. It was
�556
Putnam’s Magazine.
like the booming of distant cannon;
it sounded the death-knell of the old
regime. The majority felt that the
cause was hopeless, and took refuge in
the library under the protection of the
National Guard. The Republicans spent
some minutes in haranguing the crowd,
that now had begun to force its way
into the Chamber, and then withdrew
to the Hotel de Ville, where they pro
claimed the Republic to the expectant
masses assembled on the Place. It was
the repetition of the Jeu de Paume.
The antechamber remained full. No
one credited the report that the Repub
lican deputies had withdrawn—every
one was afraid of trickery. Finally,
they burst open all the doors, rushed en
masse into the chamber—it was com
pletely empty. The powers that were
had abdicated; the people ruled.
In leaving the buildings, M. R----observed to a member of the National
Guard, “ I recommended the deputies oi
the Right to claim your protection if they
had need of it in getting away.” “Il
y en a un pourtant, qui fefait bien de ne
pas se fier A moi, car je le fusillerais contre cette mur,—c’est Granier de Cassagnac.” Three weeks ago this famous
blackguard had threatened to shoot down
every member of the opposition. “I
should have been sorry,” said R----- to
me, “ had one of the people shot Cassagnac; but should a member of the
National Guard, a bourgeois, undertake
the affair, I had nothing to say.”
During this time the manifestation
had been lively on the Place de la Con
corde. On the central pillar of the
Corps Legislatif some one had written
in* red letters, “Rfjpublique Franqaise,”
and cries of “Vive la Republique!”
deafened the ears. There was the most
perfect order, united to the most joyful
enthusiasm. There was no occasion for
fighting any one, for every one was ani
mated by the same sentiment; and in
the general outburst of fraternity, each
individual seemed really enchanted to
grasp the hand of his neighbor, and cry
“Vive la R^publique!” A man in a
blouse came up to our carriage and ad
dressed the coachman: “Bon jour, ci-
[Nov.
toyen ; eh bien, nous l’aurons ce soil-, la
R6publique! ” He lighted his cigar,
and went off, repeating, “ Merci, citoyen,
merci, citoyen,” as if he could not too
often find a pretext for pronouncing the
dear word.
People climbed on ■ the statue of the
City of Strasbourg, and covered it with
flowers, writing inscriptions on the
pedestal, “ Vive la Republique! ” The
statue of Lyons also was decorated in
honor of the army that this city is sup
posed to send to the relief of the Alsatian
capital. Men, mounted on carriages,
harangued the people, and especially
warned them against the excesses of ’48.
Squads of the National Guard patrolled
the Place, with reversed bayonets, and
blouses of all descriptions mingled with
the handsome bourgeois uniform. “ Vive
la Garde Nationale,” cried the citizens.
“ Vive la R^publique, Vive la France! ”
replied the citizen-soldiers.
We stayed two or three hours at the
Place de la Concorde, but during this
time many events had transpired else
where. A detachment of the National
Guard had accompanied a mass of un
armed citizens to the prison of St.
Pelagie. “ 11 nous faut Rochefort,” they
thundered at the door. “Il est a Vin
cennes,” was the first reply. “ Ce
n’est pas vrai, avouaient quelques uns
de la garde tout has. 11 est ici.” With
that the crowd forced its way into the
prison, the guard only making a feint of
resistance. They demanded Rochefort
of the governor. “ Mais, messieurs,”
said the official, “ je n’ai pas d’ordres
avous le rendre.”
“Vos ordres.?
Les voici,” said one burly fellow, show
ing his fist. “ Oh, tres bien, messieurs,
devant la force, je n’airienadire,”—and
he gave up the keys.
He was logical. He had supported an
empire of force, which must necessarily
crumble before a force superior.
Rochefort was borne in triumph on
the shoulders of the people out of the
prison, as he had been carried in on the
shoulders of policemen nine months be
fore. He was carried to the Hotel de
Ville,—Jules Favre embraced him in
public.
�1870.]
The Fourth ok September in Paris.
When we drove up a little later, and
found the people still swaying under the
influence of some recent excitement, we
asked the explanation. “ C’est Jules
Favre qui embrasse Rochefort,” was the
answer. Rochefort is a symbol, and
possesses, in consequence, all the supe
rior significance possessed by a symbol
over the reality. Carrying out the rad
ical protest against the Empire made last
year by his election, the Deputies assem
bled at the HStel de Ville immediately
placed him on the list of the Provisional
Government. I 'will notice, in paren
thesis, they have also had the good
sense not to include Thiers.
*
But Rochefort was not the only sym
bol upon which the popular instinct fas
tened itself. All the signs and insignia
of the Empire and the Emperor were
attacked, the imperial eagles torn off
the Hotel de Ville, the multitudinous
busts of the imperial family shivered in
fragments, the very signs of the tailors
and other “ Fournisseurs brevetes de
l’Empereur,” broken in pieces. At one
establishment on the boulevard, where
the individual charged with the icono
clasm had demolished the first half of
the name, and there only remained-ereur,
the people, perceiving the pun, cried
out to leave it as it was.
The garden of the Tuileries was early
invaded, but no attempt made to enter
the palace. People contented them
selves with scrawling over the walls,
“Respect a; la propriStS, mort aux voleurs.” “Vive la Republique.” And
all along the Rue de Rivoli was written
on the palace, “ Logement ft Louer.”
In the sentry-box at the gate some one
had carried the joke still farther, and
written, “ Parlez au concierge; chambre
lien meublee ft louer.” Of course, the
“gracious sovereign” had put for Bel
gium some time before. Her fanfaro
nades of proclamations as ImpSratrice
Begente still decorate the dead walls of
Paris, and the recollection of her dec
larations, “Si les Prussiens viennent, ils
m’y trouveront,” remain to lend a pi
quant contrast to the reality. The im
perial family has decidedly come to the
grief it so well deserved—Monsieur at
557
Mayence under Prussian escort; Madame
at Brussels, with, it is said, the crown
jewels; the little prince, after his “bapt5me de feu,” scouring over the country
with two physicians; Plon-plon at Na
ples, whither he fled as soon as war was
declared.
Oh, dethroned princess! Oh, captive
monarch! Oh, wretched prince! The
day has gone by when the world will
weep tears over your hapless fate; when
poets will choose your woeful history as
theme for their tragedies ; when painters
will represent you, even on the back
staircase of the Tuileries, where the
brush of Gros has fixed Louis Philippe
forever! For the strange, extraordinary,
and, at first sight, almost inexplicable
circumstance in the affair, is the com
pleteness with which every trace and
vestige of imperial existence is swept
away. Since the beginning of the war,
the Emperor has indeed faded out of
sight, but that is hardly since six weeks
ago. But as late as May, the Empire
seemed in the full bloom of prosperity;
the plebiscite trick had succeeded be
yond expectation, and given the Bona
parte dynasty an indefinite lease of life.
The war, even, in concentrating all
thoughts upon foreign danger, had
hushed up for a moment the incessant
warfare of the Opposition, and such as
persisted were forcibly suppressed by
the government. People submitted to
every thing—the mobilization of the
Garde Mobile ; its incorporation in the
army; the loan of 750,000,000, covered
in a single day ; the establishment of an
Imperial cabinet; the dictature of Pali
kao ; the atrocious silence in which all
military operations were shrouded. In
deed, if the French had had only a mod
erate success—although the war was un
popular, although the majority regarded
it as senseless and unjust—still, with
success, the Empire might have been
consolidated, and the proposed reckoning
indefinitely adjourned. But, as La
Cloche remarks this morning, “the cap
tivity of the Emperor is the liberty of
the country.” L’Empire s’est donnS
sa demission. Not a blow has been
struck, hardly a protestation made or
�558
Putnam’s Magazine.
required, not an act of courage, or, alas!
I fear that it would nut have been forth
coming. But the whole gigantic hum
bug dissolved, melted away—eaten out
and out by its own rottenness. “ Je
n’ai aucune commande a l’arm^e,” said
the Emperor. “Vous n’avons aucune
proposition a; faire,” avow the minis
ters.
I am forcibly reminded of the famous
story of Edgar Poe, concerning a man
who was mesmerized at the point of
death, in such a manner that his soul
could not escape from his dead body.
The corpse, on the other hand, could
not decay as long as any soul remained
entangled in its meshes, and stayed,
therefore, in an intermediate condition
between life and death, for three years.
At the end of this time the mesmerizer
reversed his passes. The spell was brok
en ; with an immense sigh of relief, the
soul shook itself free of its charnelhouse, and at the same moment the body
tumbled into a liquid mass of putrefac
tion.
In the same way one might say that a
spell had been broken which bound
France to the Empire. The living soul
escapes—free—the Empire melts away
of itself. It is extremely important to
understand this, so as not to be the dupe
of the amiable sneers which will pres
ently circulate: ‘Oh yes, the French
never are satisfied with their government.
Four months ago they voted for it with
acclamation, and now they want a re
public again. They are not fit for a re
public.” This is most superficial non
sense, as is shown by the very simple
consideration that it is not the same
people who change, but two parties, who
have constantly been at war with each
other, and who have alternately obtained
the power. The seven and one half
millions who voted for the plebiscite will
certainly do nothing for the revolution,
but the million and a half who voted
against it are quite capable of the task,
and also of cowing into subjection the
great mass of inertia that is flung like
ballast from hand to hand. Any state
of society whose stability reposes on an
army is in a condition of unstable equi
[Nov.
librium that can always be upset in the
twinkling of an eye. It is like an in
verted pyramid, whose superhcial ex
panse only serves to conceal the narrow
base upon which it reposes. Indeed,
the main thing which excites uneasiness
after the joy of the 4th of September, is
its resemblance, in suddenness of transi
tion, to the 18 Brumaire, the 24 Fevrier, and the 2 Decembre.
But in no other respect does it resem
ble these famous days. Never was so
great a revolution accomplished in so
absolutely pacific a manner. I repeat,
it was less a revolution than a declara
tion of what really existed ; and as the
French boast, such a change of front,
made under fire of the enemy, is almost
as sublime in its boldness as in the elec
tric shock that it has given to the panicstricken people.
Panic! It is not dreamed of. The
Prussians are at Soissons — more inso
lent than ever. Already they dicrate
terms of peace from Berlin. Already are
anticipated cries of rage, both from Ger
many and England, at the proclamation
of a republic that will call into life the
republics of Spain and Italy, to form a
sanitary cordon of Latin democracy that
shall hem in the boasted Teutonic civil
ization—stronghold of feudalism.
But whatever the danger, men feel
that they live—that they are men. “ Un
til now I cared little for our disasters,”
said the interne this morning. “What
did it signify—a province more or less
to the Empire? But now that the hon
or of the Republic is concerned, I am
aroused to the gravity of our military
situation.” “ Until now,” said another
medical student, “ I have done my best
to evade being called to the army; but
to-day I have enrolled myself—for I
shall be a soldier of the Republic.”
The same feeling animated the boule
vards all night, where the Marseillaise
and cries of Vive la RSpublique certain
ly did not cease till two o’clock in the
morning. (We were on the boulevard
till midnight.) One man said: “Je
n’aime pas la Marseillaise, depuis qu’il a
6t6 souilli dans le service de l’Empire,
mieux vaut le chant de Depart:
�1870.]
The Fourth
of
September
“ La r6publique nous appelle,
Sachons nous battre au p6rir—
Un Frangais doit vivre pour elie,
Pour elie un Frangais doit mourir.”
When we returned home last evening,
the concierge and his wife stood at the
door to greet us.
“Sommes nous aussi des Republicains ? ” they cried, holding out their
hands to us as Americans.
The door was opened by an old Re
publican friend of the family. “Nous
l’avons, nous l’avons! ” he exclaimed.
At the same moment E. R. arrived; the
two men rushed into each other’s arms.
“ Ah quelle belle journee! Nous l’avons
la RSpublique ! ”—“ Oui, maintenant il
s’agii de la garder.”
It is this feeling of tenderness, of affec
tion, with which the Republic is wel
comed, that is most touching. A lost
ideal refound; no, it is more personal—
it is the exultation of a lover who finds
his long-lost mistress; and, absorbed in
delighted contemplation of her beauty,
forgets to think even of the future that
she brings back with her. It is this that
rendered the manifestation yesterday so
singularly joyful. No one seemed to
care much whether or no the Republic
could really repulse the invasion that
the Empire had called down on their
heads. A lady passed in a carriage on
the Place de la Concorde, and cried,
“A has la Prusse!” but nobody paid
any attention to her.
This appreciation of Beauty—this
perfectly developed self-consciousness
which enables each individual in mass
to seize the character of the ensemble—
(I heard several people say to-day, “ ah,
n’avons nous pas ete beaux hier! ”)—
gives a French crowd and a French
revolution a physiognomy entirely dif
ferent from that possible in our colder
northern races. It indicates their role
in the Etats-Unis of Europe for which the
present war—started in the interest of
a parvenu dynasty, and carried on in
the interests of a military feudalism—
seems really destined to pave the way.
This unanimity of the crowd is ex
plained in part by the' enthusiasm com
municated by the republicans to the
in
Paris.
559
neutrals, of all shades, from the ser
geants de ville to the National Guard and
the bourgeois, and in part by the utter
suppression of such solid sterling bour
geois as had supported the Empire, and
hated the Republic, but in the moment
of consternation do not dare to say any
thing. One could see their faces here
and there on the boulevards yesterday
—cold and sneering rather than sour or
provoked. Scepticism is always a
Frenchman’s refuge. I was furious this
morning, at the hospital, under charge of
P----- , to see the frigidity with which
he received the enthusiasm of the
interne who had helped to force the
Tuileries yesterday, of the externe who
enrolls as a “ soldier of the Republic ”
to-day. 41 This is the second Republic I
have seen,” he remarked, and busied
himself with some miserable details, af
fecting to ignore the whole matter.
I do not wonder that such men as
R----- are furious against the savants,
and corps medical, who as a body as
sume just this r61e—sneering; accepting,
fighting for all the solid crumbs of mate
rial comfort that the powers that be can
place at their disposition, but whenever
it is question of the people, treating
them as “insensgs,” “hair-brained,”
“ animus d’un mauvais esprit.”
No; fraternity cannot be universal. It
is the church militant that has to defend
truth ; and the life of every person who
cares about truth must be one of in
cessant warfare. He must learn to ren
der hate for hate, contempt for con
tempt ; to keep his back and knees stiff
and his head upright—proud, inflexible,
uncompromising. Then, perhaps, in the
course of his life-time may come to him
one such day of perfect, unalloyed tri
umph as yesterday.
Such days, in which a people lives, in
which individual lives are absorbed into
a Social Being that for a moment has be
come conscious of itself—such moments
realize the old conceptions of ecstacy
among the Neo-Platonists. It is the life
of Humanity that is the Infinite; it is
the mysterious progress of Ideas that we
understand by the “ workings of Provi
dence ; ” it is the unerring exactitude of
�560
Putnam’s Magazine.
moral retribution for good or for evil,
for true or for false, for sham or for
reality,—which represent the recom
pense of heaven and hell. The tremen
dous importance of ideas ! the only reali
ty behind the shifting phenomena of ex
istence—how is it possible to live thirty
years in the world and not have learned
it ? And yet how few there are who
trouble themselves about such “abstract
questions,” who do. not consider the
whole duty of man to consist in raising
his family in material comfort and lining
[Nov.
his pockets as comfortably as possible by
every windfall that luck or Providence
may throw in his way! Such crea
tures deserve to be cast out to wither,
severed from the deep, fruitful life of
Humanity like a branch cut off from a
vine.
I have written this long letter “ d’un
seul coup,” because I thought you would
like to hear from an eye-witness how the
Republic was proclaimed in Paris on
the 4th of September, 1870.
Your affectionate-------- .
EDITORIAL NOTES.
THE LESSON OF THE DAY.
There is a great lesson to be learned
from the present war—a lesson of the
day, and yet the lesson of six thousand
years. It is, that he who sows the wind
shall reap the whirlwind. The man or
the nation that worships wrong, shall
be by that same wrong overthrown.
Napoleon III won his throne by treach
ery and bloodshed ; he has lost it by a
tenfold treachery and a tenfold blood
shed. The French people allowed
themselves to be duped by his frauds
and cajoleries, and now they are pay
ing the penalty of their want of manli
ness and self-respect. They did not
have the courage to meet and cast off
the seducer, when he came with his
specious promises of order, prosperity,
and glory; and now, when he has
brought them before an earnest foreign
enemy, they must have courage, or die.
Louis Napoleon, as President of the
French Republic, might have lifted his
country to a pinnacle of moral prosper
ity and grandeur that the nation had
never before reached. He might have
trained his countrymen, weary of revo
lutions and suffering under the woes of
long civil wars, to a respect for law and
a love of peaceful industry which would
have given their fertile and elegant ge
nius an easy mastery of modern civili
zation. He would have retired, then,
in due time, from the seats of power,
blessed by the gratitude and love of a
happy and advancing people. But his
imagination was smitten by the dazzle
of dynastic glory. He wanted to be an
emperor, and to transmit the imperial
dignity to his descendants; and, with
that unhallowed purpose, he violated
his oaths, destroyed the constitution of
his country, butchered his fellow-citi
zens in the streets or sent them into
exile, and for eighteen years main
tained his ill-gotten power by corrupt
favoritism and the force of bayonets.
His crime was seemingly triumphant.
The nations cried out, “ Io Napoleon,
the great warrior and statesman! ”
when, suddenly, the hour of trial came
—a trial provoked by his own precipi
tate and arrogant ambition—and the
entire fabric he had so carefully reared
fell to pieces as the rottenest of struc
tures. The favorites whom he had nour
ished by corruption, were as treacherous
towards him as he had been treacher
ous towards his country. Those swords
in which he had trusted were swords of
lath, and those armies, armies of paste
board and shoddy. All his subordi
nates had but too well learned the les
son he had taught, but too well copied
the example he had set. A single ear
nest campaign snuffs out his preten
sions ; he falls without a regret, cov
ered by disgrace and contempt, and the
unmeasured ridicule of the world.
And the French people acquiesced in
his crimes; they approved, by their
�
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The fourth of September in Paris : Familiar letter from a young American
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Putnam, M. C.
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Place of publication: [New York]
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Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From Putnam's Magazine, Nov 1870.
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[G. P. Putnam's Sons]
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1870
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France
Republicanism
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Conway Tracts
Siege of Paris
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Text
1870.]
Rossetti,
the
Painter and Poet.
found questions are introduced and
handled, and its suggestiveness of pro
found thinking and vast learning, “ Lo
95
thair ” stands alone worthy, in the realms
of English fiction, to be named along
side of “ Wilhelm Meister.”
ROSSETTI, THE PAINTER AND POET.
The utmost efforts of English thought
and imagination, aided by assiduous
study of all precedent art, have not yet
succeeded in establishing an art which
merits the appellation of a school, or
which, indeed, displays amongst its
promoters a character which shall serve
to link its individuals into any coher
ence worthy of classification. Sporadic
cases of artistic excellence continually
occur, but leave no more effect on the
art-production of the country than if
they had been of foreign birth and sym
pathy ; and no artist has yet succeeded
in making a pupil, much less a school.
As, therefore, with the exception of
Turner, no man of remarkable power
had appeared in the first half of the
nineteenth century, the beginning of
the second half showed, on the whole,
the most pitifully hopeless state of ar
tistic development which any country,
with serious pretensions, has ever show
ed. In figure-painting, Leslie, painter
of pretty women and drawing-room
comedy, had the highest pretension to
genius, while around him flourished a
multitude of painters of low genre, fus
tian history, and pose plastique, with
here and there a man of real purpose,
but struggling against the most absolute
want of appreciation and sympathy,
either on the part of the profession or
the public. In technical qualities and
in use of the experience of other times
and nations, an English Exhibition of
1849, was the most laughable gathering
of misapplied brains which could be
found in any country.
Out of this degradation must come
reformation, and, in 1849, three young
reformers in art found themselves face
to face with the English public on the
question of artistic reform. These were
the chiefs of the so-called pre-Raphaelite
movement — Dante G. Rossetti, J. E.
Millais, and W. Holman Hunt—Rossetti
being the chief, of the chiefs, and an
Italian, Millais of French descent, and
only Hunt, the lesser of the three, an
Englishman.
The three reformers, like-minded in
their disgust for the inanity of the pros
perous art of the day, had yet no com
mon ideal, nor was there any intention
of organizing a school. The title long
since known of “ Pre-Raphaelite Broth
erhood ” being applied by the followers
who soon gathered around them, and
who, as is generally the case with disci
ples, began to organize on the less im
portant characteristics of the movement,
and the term soon became applied to
all minute realization of detail, though
that was not the element which gave
character to the reform, but rather de
fiance of all thoughtless, conventional
representation of nature, Rossetti differ
ing widely in his ideal from his co-reformers, and the body of their follow
ers adopted a diverging path, which has
left him alone in the peculiar excellen
cies, as in the aims, of his art.
As is always the case in men of so
peculiar and so consummate an art—
Rossetti had slight hold on the English
public, and, having always held general
opinion in contempt, he has never, since
1850, been a contributor to the exhibi
tions, so that even more than with Tur
ner—his only intellectual peer in the
English art of this century—his rank is
the award of the profession and the
learned few. Nor can he be classified.
No school has shown any thing like
him, and, like Turner, he has no fol
lower. Italian by blood, English com
monplace-ism had no root in his intel
lect, while the tone of English life lift
ed him above the slavishness which
seems to paralyse art in Italy. The
father, an Italian political refugee and
�96
Putnam’s Magazine.
poet, carried his passion for liberty and
poetry into exile, and gave his son the
name and worship of the great Tuscan,
and a nature in which his own mysti
cism and originality, and the exuberant
sensuousness of his nation, mingled
with the earnest religious nature of his
wife (of mixed English and Italian race),
and the sound, high-toned morality of
an admirable English education. Cir
cumstances more favorable for the de
velopment of an exceptionally indi
vidual artistic character could hardly
have been combined. Rossetti is at
once mystical, imaginative, individual,
and intense; a colorist of the few great
est ; designer at once weird, and of re
markable range of subject and sympa
thy ; devotional, humanitarian, satiric,
and actual, and, by turns, mediaeval and
modern; now approaching the religious
intensity of the early Italian, now sati
rizing a vice of to-day with a realism
quite his own, and again painting
images of sensuous beauty with a pas
sionate fulness and purity which no
other painter has ever rendered. His
most remarkable gift is what, in the in
completeness of artistic nomenclature,
I must call spontaneity of composition
—that imaginative faculty by which the
completeness and coherence of a pic
torial composition are preserved from
the beginning, so that, to its least de
tail, the picture bears the impress of
having been painted from a complete
conception. At times weird, at others
grotesque, and again full of pathos, his
pictures almost invariably possess this
most precious quality of composition,
in which Leys alone, of modern paint
ers, is to be compared with him.
Like all great colorists, Rossetti makes
of color a means of expression, and
only, in a lesser degree, of representa
tion. Color is to him an art in itself,
and the harmonies of his pictures are
rather like sad strains of some perfect
Eastern music, always pure and wellsought in tint, but with chords that
have the quality of those most precious
of fabrics—the Persian and Indian—
something steals in always which is not
of the seen or of earthly tones, a passage
[July,
which touches the eye as a minor strain
does the ear, with a passionate sugges
tion of something lost, and which, mated
with his earnest and spiritual tone of
thought, gives to his art, for those who
know and appreciate it fully, an interest
which certain morbid qualities, born of
the over-intense and brooding imagina
tion, and even certain deficiencies in
power of expression, only make more
deep.
Amongst modem painters he is the
most poetic; and, in his early life,
painting and poetry seem to have dis
puted the bent of his mind, and some
early poems laid the foundation of a
school of poetry, just as his early pic
tures laid those of a school of art (if
even this be worthy to be called a
school). In a volume of poems just
published there is a sonnet on one of
his earliest designs, which, doubtless,
expresses the creed of art of the reform.
It is called “ St. Luke the Painter,” and
represented St. Luke preaching and
showing pictures of the Virgin and
Christ.
Give honor unto Luke Evangelist;
Eor he it was (the aged legends say)
Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray.
Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist
Of devious symbols: but soon, having wist
How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day
Are symbols also in some deeper way,
She looked through these to God, and was God’s
priest.
And if, past noon, her toil began to irk,
And she sought talismans, and turned in vain
To soulless self-reflections of man’s skill;
Yet now, in this the twilight, she might still
Kneel in the latter grass to pray again,
Ere the night confeth, and she may not work.
Rossetti’s indifference to public opin
ion was the same for picture or poem,
for he only exhibited twice, and only
two or three of his poems have been
printed; but, as the former worked a
reform amongst the painters, the latter
gave a bent to some of the coming po
ets, and the authors of the Earthly Para
dise and Atalanta in Calydon, owe to
Rossetti the direction of their thoughts.
I remember seeing, in the exhibition,
Rossetti’s first exhibited picture. The
subject was “ Mary’s Girlhood.” It rep
resented an interior, with the Virgin
/
�1870.]
Rossetti,
the
Painter and Poet.
Mary sitting by her mother’s side and
embroidering from nature a lily, while
an angel-child waters the flower which
she copies. His sister Christina, the
poetess, and her mother, were the models
from whom he painted Mary and her
mother, and the picture, full of intense
feeling and mystic significance, was, for
the painters, the picture of the exhibi
tion (the long extinct “ National Insti
tution”). It is commemorated in the
volumes of poems by a sonnet with the
same title.
This is that blessed Mary, pre-elect
God’s virgin. Gone is a great 'while, and she
Dwelt young in Nazareth of Galilee.
Unto God’s will she,brought devout respect,
Profound simplicity of intellect,
And supreme patience. Prom her mother’s
knee
Faithful and hopeful; wise in charity ;
Strong in grave peace ; in pity circumspect.
So held she through her girlhood; as it were
An angel-watered lily, that near God
Grows and is quiet. Till, one dawn at home
She woke in her white bed, and had no fear
At all, yet wept till sunshine, and felt
Because the fulness of the time was come.
He exhibited again, in 1850, an An
nunciation, well remembered amongst
artists as “ the white picture,” both the
angel and Mary being robed in white,
in a white-walled room, the only masses
of color being their hair, which was au
burn. This was his last contribution
to any exhibition, his disregard of pub
lic approbation growing with the evi
dence that appeared every day of the
hold his works had taken on the artis
tic and intellectual part of the public,
so that to-day he is preeminently the
painter of the painters and poets, as the
character of the poetry stamps him the
poet of the painters. Scarcely a note
has he struck in his poems which has
not its corresponding expression in his
painting; and poem sometimes turns
to a picture, and a picture sometimes
reproduces itself as a poem.
Amongst the most important of the
poems thus involved is one which, con
ceived in the old catholic spirit, Ros
setti has illustrated by a series of pic
tures and drawings, designed in the
same tone. It is the “ Ave,” a hymn to
the Virgin. It is full of the most ad
1
97
mirable word-painting, and follows the
life of the Virgin from the annunciation
to the assumption. The opening pic
ture of the annunciation is in the spirit
of his early art as the whole poem is of
his early thought.
Mind’st thou not (when June’s heavy breath
Warmed the long days in Nazareth),
That eve thou didst go forth to give
Thy flowers some drink that they might live
One faint night more amid the sands I
Far off the trees were as pale wands
Against the fervid sky : the sea
Sighed further off eternally,
As human sorrow sighs in sleep.
Then suddenly the awe grew deep,
As of a day to which all days
Were footsteps in God’s secret ways:
Until a folding sense, like prayer
Which is, as God is, everywhere,
Gathered about thee; and a voice
Spake to thee without any noise,
Being of the silence:—“ Hail 1 ’’ it said,
“ Thou that art highly favored ;
The Lord is with thee here and now,
Blessed among all women thou 1 ”
Another more purely imaginative and
intensely pathetic picture, is of the life
of Mary in the house of John, after
Christ’s death. It represents the inte
rior of the house of John, with a win
dow- showing a twilight view of Jeru
salem. Against the faint distance cut
the window-bars, forming a cross, at the
intersection of which hangs a lamp
which Mary had risen to trim and light,
having left her spinning, while John,
who has been writing, and holds his
tablets still on his knees, strikes a light
with a flint and steel for Mary to use.
Above the window hangs a net. The
passage which is illustrated by it is one
of the finest of the poem.
Mind’st thou not (when the twilight gone
Left darkness in the house of John)
Between the naked window-bars
That spacious vigil of the stars!
For thou, a watcher even as they,
Wouldst rise from where throughout the day
Thou wroughtest raiment for His poor;
And, finding the fixed terms endure
Of day and night which never brought
Sounds of His coming chariot,
Wouldst lift, through cloud-waste unexplor’d,
Those eyes which said, “ How long, O Lord 1 ”
Then that disciple whom He loved,
Well heeding, haply would be moved
To ask thy blessing in His name;
And that one thought in both, the same
Though silent, then would clasp ye round
To weep together—tears long bound—
Sick tears of patience, dumb and slow.
�A A
98
Putnam’s Magazine.
The poem called the Blessed Damozel was one of those which were pub
lished in an art-magazine, conducted by
the literary confreres of the reformers
in art, and amongst the younger Eng
lish poets of the day was the key of a
new poetic tendency. The writer of
these lines has heard the author of the
Earthly Paradise avow that the Blessed
Damozel turned his mind to writing
poetry. It is one of the more passionate,
and, at the same time, pictorial, of all
Rossetti’s poems, and full of the mystic
religious sense in which all the new
school began their work with symbolic
accessories, as though it had been in
tended for illustration.
THE BLESSED DAMOZEL.
The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of heaven ;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even ;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven.
Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary’s gift,
For service meetly worn ;
Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.
Herseemed she scarce had been a day
One of God’s choristers ;
The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.
(To one, it is ten years of years.
. . . Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she leaned o’er me—her hair
Fell all about my face. . . .
Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves.
The whole year sets apace.)
##****
“ I wish that he were come to me,
For he will come,” she said.
“ Have I not prayed in heaven ?—on earth,
Hord, Hord, has he not pray’d ?
Are not two prayers a perfect strength ?
And shall I feel afraid ’
“ We two,” she said, “ will seek the groves
Where the lady Mary is,
******
“ He shall fear, haply, and be dumb:
Then will I lay my cheek
To his, and tell about our love,
Not once abashed or weak:
And the dear Mother will approve
My pride, and let me speak.
[July,
“ Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
To Him round whom all souls
Kneel, the clear-ranged unnumbered heads
Bowed with their aureoles :
And angels meeting us shall sing
To their citherns and citoles.
“There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Thus much for him and me:—
Only to live as once on earth
With Bove,—only to be,
As then awhile, for ever now
Together, I and he.”
She gazed and listened and then said,
Bess sad of speech than mild,—
“ All this is when he comes.” She ceased.
The light thrilled towards her, fill’d
With angels in strong level flight.
Her eyes prayed, and she smil’d.
(I saw her smile.) But soon their path
Was vague in distant spheres :
And then she cast her arms along
The golden barriers,
And laid her face between her hands,
And wept. (I heard her tears.)
The influence of the study of Dante
has been always perceptible in all the
work of our painter-poet. The Vita
Nuova has been an inexhaustible mine of
picture-subject, and the poem, “ Dante
at Verona,” one of the longest in the
book, is also one of the most earnestly
felt, and sympathetic. The Divina
Commedia has furnished him only one
picture, or rather triptych, from the
story of Francesca di Rimini. In this
the poets are in the central division;
“ The Kiss,” on the right, full of the
most intense passion, and the ghosts on
the left, pale, dreamy, but dressed as in
“ The Kiss,” and floating through an
atmosphere filled with little flames, fall
ing like rain. In dealing with material
like this, of course a large measure of
conventionalism is to be allowed in the
treatment, and Rossetti never hesitates
in employing all that his subject de
mands, so that the Dante designs are,
for the most part, at once mystic and
typical in conception and treatment.
An important picture of “ The Vision
of Dante on the Day of Beatrice’s Death,”
is most thoroughly studied and realized;
two of the heads of Beatrice, and the
lady who holds the veil over her at her
head, are studied from two of the most
celebrated beauties of London. Love
leads Dante into the room, where the
�1870.]
Rossetti, the Paintee
body lies, the floor of which is strewn
with poppies, and kisses the dead face,
in token of the final union—the spiritual
kiss which death, the new life, permits
to love.
In anQther vein the painter employs
a degree of realization which represents
faculties of a very different nature. In
a picture which he calls Hesterna Rosa
—“yesterday’s rose”—two courtesans,
with their lovers, are finishing a carouse
in a tent, while the day is breaking out
ride. One of them, debauched to utter
degradation, riots in her shame and
drunkenness, while the other, unused
yet to her fallen state, turns, in awaking
shame, from her companions. The men
are throwing dice—the lover of the
shame-faced girl, a low, ruffianly sharp
er, bites his mistress’ finger abstractedly
as he waits for the throw of his adver
sary. A little girl, an attendant, holds
a lute up to her ear and touches the
strings, listening to the vibration in
sheer indifference to the bacchanals, her
purity making the one bright point in
the drama, while a monkey—type of
all uncleanness—sits at the other side
scratching himself in idleness.
Through the opening of the tent is
seen the dawn through the orchard
trees, mingling with the lamp-light.
One, and perhaps the most powerful,
cause of the deep hold which Rossetti,
as painter and poet, has obtained on his
contemporary painters and poets, is the
intense subjectivity of his genius, which,
while it gives to sympathetic apprecia
tion an inexhaustible and inexplicable
charm, to those who have no sympathy
with his idiosyncrasy gives only an im
pression of involved phantasy and far
fetched symbolism. Yet not even Dante
himself was more legitimately to this
manner born. Not even Titian or Tur
ner, or the painter of the fragment of
Pita, was more involuntarily and uncon
trollably subjective than their fellowcountryman Rossetti. Types evolved
from his own nature run through all
his work, and his ideals of beauty have
a sisterly likeness which no one can fail
to recognize, and which renders it im
possible for him to render certain types
and
Poet.
of character with satisfaction or com
plete success. It was the Rossetti type
of face and figure which, caricatured
and exaggerated in ignorant enthusiasm
by the followers of the painter, gave rise
to the singular and certainly most un
lovely ideal of the minor pre-Raphaelites—an ideal in which physical beauty
was absolutely set at nought in the
search of significance and the evi
dence of passion. Even in his portraits
Rossetti fails, unless the subject inclines
more or less to the type which he re
flects.
This demands more than external
beauty, be it ever so exquisite, and is
only absolutely content with a certain
gravity and intensity of character, deep,
inscrutable, sphinx-like, or still more
when these characteristics go with the
expression of intense and restrained
passion. Of this type the portrait of
Mrs. Morris, wife of the author of the
Earthly Paradise, is one of the most
perfectly realized expressions. It repre
sents a face of remarkable perfectness
of proportion and nobility of intellec
tual character, but with a depth of
meaning, half-told, questioning eyes
and mute lips, which make it, once
seen, never to be forgotten; and, paint
ed with a wealth of color and complete
ness of power, unequalled by any mod
ern work, so far as I know. It is one of
those portraits which, like Raphael’s
Julius Second, Titian’s “ Bella Donna,”
and other singularly understood and
rendered heads of almost all the great
masters of portraiture, remain, perhaps,
the highest expression of the painter’s
qualities.
A remarkable design of Rossetti’s is
the Mary Magdalene at the House of
Simon the Pharisee. She is passing the
house at the head of a festal procession,
crowned with flowers, and accompanied
by her lover, when she sees Christ
through the open door, and, tearing off
the garlands, pushes her way into the
chamber, against the efforts of the lover
and one of her female companions. Far
up the street may be seen the baccha
nals, singing, waving their garlands and
playing on musical instruments as they
x
�100
Putnam’s Magazine.
[July,
In “ The Portrait,” again—a poem
come, and they stop, in amused surprise,
at the eccentricity of Mary, who with full of sad and passionate color and pic
her two immediate companions occupy torial quality—it is the portrait of his
the centre of the composition. The dead love he monodizes. His love had
head of Christ appears through the been told, in “ a dim, deep wood,” and
window at the right, below which, out to commemorate it he paintg the por
side, a vine climbs up on the wall, and trait.
a deer nibbles at it.
Next day the memories of these things,
The whole picture, except the grave,
Like leaves through which a bird has flown,
Still vibrated with Love’s warm wings;
passionate, and touching face of Mary,
Till I must make them all my own
turned to Christ, without any heed to
And paint this picture. So, ’twixt ease
the companions who hold her feet and
Of talk and sweet long silences,
She stood among the plants in bloom
knees to prevent her entering, and the
At windows of a summer room,
responding face of Christ, who turns
To feign the shadow of the trees.
towards her as he sits at the table, is
And as I wrought, while all above
full of gayety and merriment; but the
And all around was fragrant air,
head of Mary, which is pictorially the
In the sick burthen of my love
It seemed each sun-thrilled blossom there
key-note of it, gives to the ensemble
Beat like a heart among the leaves.
the pathetic tone which almost all of
O heart that never beats nor heaves,
Rossetti’s pictures have, and which seem
In that one darkness lying still,
* What now to thee my love’s great will
to be the characteristic of his nature, for
Or the fine web the sunshine weaves 1
scarcely one of his poems is conceived
******
in any other feeling than one approachHere with her face doth memory sit
ing to sadness, so that, to those who
Meanwhile, and wait the day’s decline,
have not seen his painting, his poetry
Till other eyes shall look from it,
Eyes of the spirit’s Talestine,
will give the clear idea of his individu
Even than the old gaze tenderer:
ality in art. In one of the most exqui
While hopes and aims long lost with her
Stand round her image side by side,
site of his love-poems, “ The Stream’s
Like tombs of pilgrims that have died
Secret,” he demands of the stream what
About the Holy Sepulchre.
message it bears from his mistress, and,
rehearsing the growth of their passion
But enough, both of picture and
to himself and the inexorable wave, he poem, to convey such idea as a brief
comes, at last, to find that death alone article may, of one of the most singu
can reply to his question.
larly gifted and imaginative artists the
world has ever seen, and whose unique
Ah, by another wave,
power, had it been supplemented by the
On other airs, the hour must come,
Which to thy heart, my love, shall call me home.
training of such a school as that of
Between the lips of the low cave,
Venice, would have placed him at the
Against that night the lapping waters lav
head of painters of human passion.
And the dark lips are dumb.
Trained under the eye of a Veronese,
But there Love’s self doth stand,
his work would have gained in solidity
And with Life’s weary wings far-flown,
And with Death’s eyes that make the water moan,
and drawing; and, may-be, with a pub
Gathers the water in his hand:
lic capable of fully appreciating his
And they that drink know nought of sky or land
genius, he might have painted less de
But only love alone.
fiantly of its opinion. His dramatic
0 soul-sequestered face
power is not fully conveyed in any of
Bar off,—0 were that night but now!
So even beside that stream even I and thou
his poems except the “ Last Confession,”
Through thirsting lips should draw Love’s grace, which gives no idea of the versatility
And in the zone of that supreme embrace
with which he depicts passion’s rang
Bind aching breast and brow.
ing from the besotted huts of a Borgia
O water whispering
to the ecstatic exaltation of a Magda
Still through the dark into mine ears,—
As with mine eyes, is it not now with hers ?—
lene, or the serenity of a Madonna. As
Mine eyes that add to thy cold spring,
painter or poet, human passion and hu
Wan water, wandering water weltering,
man sorrow are the only themes which
This hidden tide of tears.
�A Disenchanted Republican.
1870.1
101
occupy his feeling ; and, though his pas- able, and he is often careless whether his
sion sometimes passes the conventional picture is understood or not. He car
ism’of art, and his grief becomes mor ries his indifference to mere physical
bid, as,'in his pictures, the subjectivity beauty to such a degree as often to make
of his treatment sometimes makes his his faces ugly, in the seeking, for intense
work almost a riddle to the unlearned ; expression, and, in the action of his fig
there is no affectation and no willing ures, passes the limits of the natural as
weakness, as there is no unconscientious well as graceful, to obtain force. But,
trifling with his art, but his tendency, with all his defects and peculiarities,
on the contrary, is to neglect those he stands to-day, in general artistic
means of success which would make power, first amongst the painters of
his art much more widely felt and valu England.
A DISENCHANTED REPUBLICAN.
LETTEE FEOM A GEEMAN TRAVELLER
New York, 1869.
Mon cher Ami :
Do you remember standing with me,
years ago, on a beautiful point of land,
and gazing on the mountains and the
sea ? How vast and exhilarating was
the view, what picturesque grandeur
and novel evidences of human thrift
and science in the valley-dwellings, old
churches, and careering sails ; while, at
our feet, washed up by the tide, garb
age, and bits of wreck, made the details
around such a crude and dreary contrast
to the scene beyond and above.
Thus, my friend, is it here. When I
think of the myriads who, in Europe,
had no hope or prospect but drudgery
and indigence, who, in the lands of the
great West as farmers, and in the cities
as mechanics, have attained competence,
often wealth; and whose children are
now educated, prosperous, and, best of
all, progressive, citizens of this great Re
public; when I see how free is the
scope, how sure the harvest reaped by
intelligence, industry, and temperance,
in this land, I feel heart and brain ex
panded and vivified with gratified hu
man sympathies and limitless aspira
tion.
Yon may wonder at my including
temperance as a condition of success:
it is because intemperance is still the
curse of the country; and, upon inves
tigation, I find that smartness and tem
perance, combined, have been and are
the means whereby the poor and ambi
tious have risen to social influence, wide
activity, and political or professional
honor.
But when, drawing in both thought
and vision from the broad scenes, from
the human generalization, I look criti
cally at what is going on immediately
around me, often—to use a phrase of
the native pioneer author—“ hope dark
ness into anxiety, anxiety into dread,
and dread into despair; ” for this very
smartness — a favorite and significant
term—is often unscrupulous; this very
temperance cold-blooded; and this very
success unsoftened by sentiment, un
elevated by aspiration, unredeemed by
beneficence.
The devotion to wealth, as such, the
temporizing with fraud, the triumph of
impudence, the material standard and
style of life, make me look back upon
the homely ways, the genial content,
the cultured repose so often found in
the Old World, with a kind of regretful
admiration. And yet it is just and
rational to bear constantly in mind the
fact that here every thing comes to the
surface; no polished absolutism guards
from view the latent corruption; no
system of espionage and censorship, of
police and military despotism, keeps the
outside fair, while private rights and
public virtue are mined for destruction ;
�102
Putnam’s Magazine.
all is exposed and discussed; and the
good and evil elements of society, poli
tics, opinion, trade, speculation, pastime,
and crime, have free play and frank ex
position. But, you will ask, how is it
with regard to the intellectual.life in its
higher phase ? What are the tenden
cies and triumphs of the mind, apart
from the sphere of fashion, of com
merce, of civic duty ? My answer is,
audacious; no other word so well ex
presses the animus of the would-be
thinkers of the land. They despise pre
cedents, ignore discipline, contemn the
past; they serve up ideas as old as
Plato, as familiar to scholars as Mon
taigne, in new-fangled sentences, and
delude themselves and their disciples
with the pretence of originality. They
espouse an opinion, a cause, a theory,
and make capital thereof on the ros
trum and through the press, without a
particle of philosophic insight or moral
consistency; in education, in religion,
in what they call culture, with an ego
tism that is at once melancholy and
ridiculous, they maintain “ what is new
but not true, and what is true but not
new,” and, with a complacent hardihood
that repudiates the laws of humanity,
the pure and primal sentiments that lie
at the basis of civilization and the con
stitution of man and woman. Without
reverence there is no insight; without
sympathy there is no truth ; all is bold,
self-asserting, conceited, unscrupulous,
and, in the last analysis, vulgar; but
there is, in all this perversion of har
monious intellectual life and complete
intellectual equipment, what takes with
the half-informed — sensationalism, the
love of letters, and speculative thought.
Closely studied, the cause of this incon
gruous development may be found in a
certain lack of moral sensibility, which
instinctively guards from paradox on
the one hand and guides to truth on the
other. It is, as you well know, essential
to artistic perception; and those of
American writers and thinkers, who
have the sense and sentiment of art, like
Irving and Bryant, Hawthorne and
Longfellow, have been thereby protect
ed from the reckless vagaries and the
[July,
mental effrontery which, under the plea
of reform, of free thought, of progress,
profanes the modest instincts of human
ity, and desecrates the beautiful and the
true in the interest of an eager, intoler
ant vanity.
While Mammon is widely worshipped,
and Faith widely degraded, bright, be
nign exceptions to this pagan spirit
“give us pause.” I have never met
more choice and charming illustrations
of mental integrity, truth to personal
conviction, heroic fidelity in legitimate
individual development, than among
the free and faithful citizens of this
Republic; but they are unappreciated,
except by the few who intimately know
them; their influence is limited, and
they are unambitious, as are all human
beings who live intrinsically from with
in, and not conventionally from with
out. And, with all the deference to
and passion for money, there never was
a commercial city in the world where
so much is given in charity, where so
many rich men habitually devote a not
inconsiderable portion of their income
to the relief of distress, or where the
response to appeals for aid in any hu
mane or patriotic cause is more fre
quent, prompt, and generous than in
this same badly-governed, money-get
ting, and money-spending city of New
York.
After all, perhaps, I must confess that
the disappointment experienced grows
out of extravagant anticipations. The
American theory of government, the
equality of citizens, the character of
the early patriots, the absence of rank,
kingcraft, and a terrible disparity of
condition, had long endeared the coun
try to me and mine; but the behavior
of the people in the civil war, their
cheerful self-sacrifice, their patient de
votion, their contented return to pri
vate life from the army and the field,
their unparalleled triumph and magna
nimity, had raised affection into admi
ration ; I longed to tread so illustrious
a land, to greet so noble a race, and to
fraternize with such brave, wise, and
true men. With the returning tide of
peace, of course, habits of gain and
�1870.]
A Disenchanted Republican.
luxury were resumed in. the populous
centres, and the inevitable demoraliza
tion of war left its traces ; the sal
ient divisions between the patriotic
and the disloyal, the martyrs and the
mercenaries, which kept compact and
imposing the army of noble and true
citizens during the struggle, when it
ceased, were obliterated, and society be
came more heterogeneous than ever, its
manifestations less characteristic, its su
perficial traits more, and its talent and
virtue less, apparent. Hence the Amer
ica of my fond imagination seemed for
ever vanished ; and, only by patient ob
servation and fortunate rencontres, have
I gradually learned to discriminate and
recognize the soul of good in things
evil.
No, my friend, I will not expose Wil
helmina to the precocious development,
the premature self-assertion, incident to
this social atmosphere. I daily see
girls, in their teens, with all the airs
and much of the way of thinking of
old women of the world—confident,
vain, self-indulgent, and, withal, ~blasé.
True, the exceptions are charming. I
find them chiefly among families in
moderate circumstances, but of good
connection, wherein the daughters have
been reared in active, wholesome, and
responsible duties — had, in short, to
contribute, directly or indirectly, to
their own support. With intellectual
tastes and a religious education, this
discipline in a land where the sex is
held in respect,—these young women
are noble, pure, brave, and conscien
tious, as well as aspiring and intelligent.
I have seen many such in the Normal
schools, engaged in clerical work in the
departments at Washington, and by the
firesides of the inland towns, or in the
most thoroughly respectable and least
fashionable households of this metropo
lis. But one is disenchanted, not only
of his ideal of womanhood, but of the
most homely and humble domestic illu
sions, by the sight of crowds of gaylydressed females, with huge greasy mass
es of hair on the back of their heads,
and no modest shield to their brazen
brows, draggling their long silken trains
103
through the dirt of Broadway, or crush
ing, like half-inflated balloons, their am
ple skirts through a densely-packed
omnibus. The triumph of extravagant
luxury may be seen, at certain seasons,
at what looks like a palace—a huge,
lofty marble building, in the principal
thoroughfare of this city; it is not a
royal residence, nor a gallery of art, nor
a college—it is a drygoods shop. Im
agine a thousand women there con
vened, an army of clerks showing pat
terns, measuring off goods, or rushing
to and fro with change and orders.
Every one of these females is dressed in
silk ; at least one half, if attired accord
ing to their means and station, would
wear calico or homespun; perhaps an
eighth out of the whole number of hus
bands to these shopping wives are either
bankrupt or at work in Wall-street, with
fear and trembling, risking their all to
supply the enormous current expenses
of their families, whereof half relate to
female dress. Carry the inference from
these facts a little further; of course,
the daughters marry for an establish
ment, look abroad for enjoyment; byand-by go to Europe, ostensibly to edu
cate their children (leaving papa to his
club and counting-room), but really to
gossip at Dresden, flirt at Rome, or shop
in Paris.
I have been surprised to find so many
underbred men in society; but this is
explained by the fact that so many who,
in youth, have enjoyed few means of
culture and no social training, in their
prime have made a fortune, and are able
to give dinners, and send their children
to fashionable schools. Hence a sin
gular incongruity in manners, ranging
from the most refined to the most in
tolerable in the same salon, or among
the same class and circle. Remissness
in answering notes, off-hand verbal in
vitations to strangers without a prelimi
nary call, forcing personal topics into
conversation, stuffing unceremoniously
at receptions, free and easy bearing to
wards ladies, lounging, staring, asking
impertinent questions, pushing into no
tice, intruding on the talk and privacy
of others—in a word, an utter absence
�104
Putnam’s Magazine.
of delicacy and consideration is mani
fest in a sphere where you will, at the
same time, recognize the highest type,
both of character and breeding, in both
sexes. This crude juxtaposition star
tles a European ; but he is still more as
tonished after hearing a man’s conduct
stigmatized, and his character annihi
lated at the club ; to encounter the in
dividual thus condemned an accepted
guest of the men who denounce him.
In a word, there seems no social dis
crimination; one’s pleasure in choice
society is constantly spoiled by the
presence of those reeking with the es
sential oil of vulgarity, of foreign ad
venturers without any credentials, and
who succeed in effecting an entrée upon
the most fallacious grounds. It is one
of the most remarkable of social phe
nomena here, that even cultivated and
scrupulously honorable men and high
bred women are so patient under social
inflictions, so thoughtless in social rela
tions ; not that they compromise their
characters—they only degrade their hos
pitality. Exclusiveness is, indeed, the
opposite of republican principle ; but
that refers to discrepancies of rank, of
birth, and of fortune ; exclusiveness
based on character, on culture, on the
tone and traits of the individual, is and
should be the guarantee of social vir
tue, refinement, and self-respect.
And yet, my friend, inconsistent as it
may seem, I really think there never
was a country where every man’s and
woman’s true worth and claims are bet
ter tested than this. I mean that when
you turn from the fete or the fashion of
the hour, and discuss character with the
sensible people you happen to know,
they invariably pierce the sham, recog
nize the true, and justly estimate legiti
mate claims. Sooner or later, in this
free land, where the faculties are so
keenly exercised, the scope for talent so
wide ; where all kinds of people come
together, and there is a chance for every
one,—what there is of original power, of
integrity, of kindness, of cunning, of
genius, of rascality, and of faith in a
human being, finds development, comes
to the surface, and turns the balance
[July,
of public opinion by social analysis.
There is an instinctive sagacity and
sense of justice in the popular mind.
If there was one confident idea I en
tertained in regard to this country, be
fore coming here, it was that I should
find plenty of space. I expected an
infinity of room. I said to myself,
those straggling unwalled cities devour
suburban vicinage so easily—have so
much room to spread ; I had heard of
the Capital’s “ magnificent distances,”
and dreamed of the boundless prairies
and the vastness of the continent. The
same impression existed in regard to all
social and economic arrangements ;
“ there,” I said to myself, “ I shall ex
pand at will ; every thing is new, un
bounded, open, large, and free.” Well,
thus far, I have found it just the reverse.
Assigned a lofty and diminutive bed
chamber at the hotels—having to stand
up in the horse-cars, because all the
seats are occupied—finding my friends’
pews full—not having elbow-room at
the table d'hôte—tired of waiting for
my turn to look at the paper at club
and reading-room—being told the new
novel is “ out ” at the library—standing
in a line at the theatre box-office for an
hour, to be told all the good places are
taken—receiving hasty notes from edit
ors that my article had been in type but
that their columns were oversupplied—
pressed to the wall at parties—jostled
in Broadway and Wall-street—rushed
upon at ferry-boat piers—interrupted in
quiet talks—my neighbor, at dinner, ab
stracted by observation of a distant
guest—I never, in my life, had such a
painful consciousness of being de trop,
in the way, insignificant, overlooked,
and crowded out, as here ; and I have to
go, every now and then, to the country
to breathe freely and realize my own in
dividuality and independence.
The security of life and property is
altogether inadequate here. Consult a
file of newspapers and you will find that
massacres by rail, burglaries, murders,
and conflagrations are more numerous,
make less impression, and are less guard
ed against and atoned for, by process
of law, than in any other civilized land.
�1870.]
A Disenchanted Republican.
These characteristics are, however, very
unequally distributed. You must con
tinually bear in mind that the facts I
state, and the inferences thence drawn,
often have but a local application.
Thus, familiar with the admirable mu
nicipal system whereby so many towns
in Europe rose to power and prosperity
of old, and with the civic sagacity and
rectitude of the founders of this Repub
lic, who, in colonial times, disciplined
the people to self-goveniment, through
the free and faithful administration of
local affairs—I was the more disconcert
ed at the awful abuses and patent frauds
of the so-called government of this com
mercial metropolis of the United States.
In New England you find the munici
pal system carried to perfection, unper
verted, and effective,. In Vermont it
exists in elevated simplicity and honor ;
but in the large cities, owing to a larger
influx of foreigners, so many of whom
are poor and ignorant, it is degraded.
You naturally ask, Why do not the
honest and intelligent citizens produce
a reform in what so nearly concerns both
their reputation and their welfare ? My
answer is, partly through indifference
and partly through fear, added to utter
want of faith in the practicability of
success. There is a timidity native to
riches ; the large estate-holders desire
to conciliate the robber ; they deem it
more safe to succumb than oppose ; they
lack moral courage ; hence the social
compromises I have noted, and hence,
too, the ominous civic pusillanimity.
Care is the bane of conscientious life
here ; I mean that, when a man or wom
an is upright and bent upon duty, the
performance thereof is hampered and
made irksome by the state of society
and the circumstances of the people.
Thus, in affairs when an honest man is
associated with directors, trustees, or
other corporate representatives, he is
sure to be revolted by unscrupulous do
ings or shameful neglect ; he has to
fight for what is just in the manage
ment, or withdraw in disgust therefrom.
So a young man, who is wise enough to
eschew alcoholic stimulants and games
of hazard, has need of rare moral courvol. vi.—7
105
age, or is forced to avoid the compan
ionship of his reckless comrades. And,
worst of all, a woman with a sentiment
of family obligation, a principle of
household duty, cannot regulate the
servants, see to the providing of the
table, the order and pleasantness of
home-life, without a vigilance, a sacri
fice of time, and an anxiety which takes
the bloom from her cheek and plants a
wrinkle on her brow. The lack of welltrained and contented “help,”—as the
domestic servants are ironically called
—the great expense of living, and the
absence of that machinery which, once
set up with judgment, goes on so regu
larly in our Old World domiciles—are
among the causes of weariness and care
in the average female life of this coun
try, in a manner and to a degree un
known in Europe, where leisure and re
pose are easily secured by competence
and tact.
I do not wonder that so many of the
best-bred and most intelligent Ameri
can girls prefer army and navy officers
or diplomats for husbands to the “ danc
ing men ” they meet in society, usually
vapid-, if not dissipated ; whereas the
education for the army, navy, and diplo
macy, or the culture attained by the
discipline thereof, where there is a par
ticle of sense or character, insures a cer
tain amount of manliness and knowl
edge, such as are indispensable to a
clever and refined woman in a life-com
panion. The two classes I pity most
here are the very old and the very
young ; the former, because they are
shamefully neglected, and the latter,
because they are perverted. You see a
gentleman of the old school snubbed
by Young America ; a venerable wom
an unattended to in a corner, while
rude and complaisant girls push to the
front rank ; and you see children, who
ought to be kept in the fields or the
nursery, fashionably arrayed and hold
ing levées, or dancing the German, with
all the extravagance of toilettes and
consciousness of manner, that distin
guish their elders, and a zest infinitely
more solemn. It is painful to see age
thus unprivileged and unhonored, and
�106
Putnam’s Magazine.
childhood thus profaned : a conserva
tive is, in vulgar parlance, an old fogy ; a
retired worthy, however eminent, is a
“ fossil ; ” precocity in manner, mind,
and aspect, is encouraged ; the mature
and complete, the finished and the
formed, are exceptional; crudity and
pretension are in the ascendant.
One of my most cherished puiposes,
as you know, was to utilize my studies
as a publicist, and my experience as a
republican philosopher, through the
press of this free land. In this design
I have met with signal discouragement.
While a few men, who have thought
fully investigated the most imminent
problems in modern political and social
life, have listened to my views with the
most sympathetic attention, and have
recognized the importance of the facts
of the past which I have so long labor
ed to bring forward as practical illus
trations of the present—those who con
trol the press of these States, by virtue
of proprietorship, avoid all but imme
diate topics of public interest, declaring
their exclusive discussion essential to
the prosperity of their vocation, and
failing to appreciate both historic par
allels and philosophic comments. I
have been surprised to note how soon
even men of academic culture yield to
the vulgar standard of the immediate,
and ignore the vast inspiration of hu
manity and truth as developed in the
career of the race and the salient facts
of historic civilization. Nor is this all.
With few exceptions, popular journal
ism and speech here is based upon the
sensational element — not upon senti
ment or reflection. It is difficult to se
cure attention, except through a bizarre
style or melodramatic incident ; the
grotesque forms of American humor,
seeking, by violation of orthography or
ingenious slang, to catch the eye of
readers or the ear of audiences, indicate
the extremes to which these sensational
experiments are carried. Nothing makes
a newspaper sell like prurient details of
crime, audacious personal attacks, or ex
travagant inventions. A calm, thought
ful discussion, however wise, original,
and sincere, gains comparatively little
[July,
sympathy; a profound criticism, a forci
ble but finished essay, an individual,
earnest, and graceful utterance of the
choicest experience, or the most charac
teristic feeling, seem to be lost in the
noisy material atmosphere of life in Ame
rica. I find the best thinkers, the most
loyal students, the most aspiring and ge
nial minds, singularly isolated. I have
come upon them accidentally, not in what
is called society; I have marvelled to
perceive how little they are known, even
to familiar acquaintances; for there is no
esprit du corps in letters or philosophy
here ; few have the leisure to do justice
to what is most auspicious in their fel
lows ; few take a hearty interest in the
intellectual efforts or idiosyncrasies of
their best endowed comrades; each
seems bent seemingly on personal ob
jects ; there is no “ division of the
records of the mind; ” people are too
busy, too self-absorbed to sympathize
with what is highest and most indi
vidual in character ; all my most intelli
gent and, I may say, most agreeable
friends complain of this isolation. It
may sometimes strengthen, but it more
frequently narrows and chills. A sin
gular and most unpropitious selfishness
belongs to many of the cleverest men
and women I have met in America; au
thorship and art seem often merce
nary or egotistic, instead of soulful pur
suits; they seem to divide instead of
fusing society; on the one hand are the
fashionable and the wealthy, many of
them pleasant and charitable, but un
aspiring and material; on the other,
poor scholars, professors, litterateurs—
too many of the latter Bohemians; and,
although these two classes sometimes
come together, it is usually in a conven
tional way—without any real sympathy
or disinterested recognition.
But it is not merely in the negative
defect of repudiating the calm, finished,
and considerate discussion of vital sub
jects or aesthetic principles, that the
American press and current literature
disappoint me; the abuses of journal
ism are flagrant. I have been disgust
ed, beyond expression, at the vulgarity
of its tone and the recklessness of its
�1870.]
A Disenchanted Republican.
slanders. During my brief sojourn I
have read the most infamous charges
and the most scurrilous tirades against
the most irreproachable and eminent
citizens, from the Chief Magistrate to
the modest litterateur ; and, when I have
wondered at the apathy exhibited, I
have been answered by a shrug or a
laugh. The fact is, there is no redress
for these vile abuses but resort to per
sonal violence; the law of libel is prac
tically a nullity, so expensive is the pro
cess and uncertain the result; an elect
ive judiciary—one of the most fatal
changes in the constitution of the state
—has created a class of corrupt judges.
To expect justice in cases of slander, is
vain. Unfortunately, there is not a suf
ficient social organization to apply suc
cessfully the punishment of ostracism;
and a set of improvident, irresponsible
writers are usually employed to do the
blackguardism ; so that, with a few no
ble exceptions, the press here is venal
and vulgar, utterly reckless, and the
organ, not of average intelligence, but
of the lowest arts.
The first time I dined out in New
York was at the house of a very weal
thy citizen, identified with fashionable
society. The dinner was luxurious, and
■every thing thereat, from the plate and
porcelain to the furniture and toilettes,
indicated enormous means. My neigh
bor at table was a chatty, elegantly
dressed young man, to whom I had
been formally presented by my host.
Our conversation turned upon invest
ments, and my companion seemed fa( miiiar with all the stocks in the mar
ket, and spoke so highly of the pros
pects of one, that I accepted his invita
tion to call at his office the next day
and examine the details of the scheme.
These were given me in writing, with
the names of the board of directors,
among which I recognized several before
suggested to me as those of gentlemen
of probity and position. I accordingly
invested; and discovered, a few weeks
later, that the representations made to
me were false; that the stock was
worthless, and that the so-called “ Com
pany,” consisting of half-a-dozen per
107
sons, among whom my adviser was one,
had pocketed the amount advanced by
those who, like myself, had been de
luded by the fallacious programme and
its respectable endorsement. Fraud
may be practised in any country; but
here the swindler was encountered in
what is called good society ; and when
I complained to his “ directors,” they
declared they had allowed their names
to be used inadvertently, and that they
knew nothing of the matter. I insti
tuted a suit, but failed to obtain a ver
dict.
My first morning’s walk down a fash
ionable avenue was interrupted by a
shout and sign of alarm from the oppo
site side of the street. *1 had just time
to rush up a flight of steps and ensconce
myself in a friendly doorway, when by
ran a mad ox, and gored a laborer be
fore my sickened sight; nor was he
captured until he had carried dismay
and destraction for two miles through
the heart of this populous city ! This
rabid beast had escaped from a drove
waiting to be slaughtered in the sub
urbs. Such occurrences are not uncom
mon here, and, apparently, make little
impression and induce little effort for
reform.
The municipal magnates levied a tax
of three hundred dollars on one of my
friends, resident of a street they intend
ed to re-pave. Now it so happened
that the pavement of this street was in
excellent order; I could see no reason
for the expense and inconvenience pro
posed. Upon inquiry I learned that an
asphaltum was to be substituted for the
stone-pavement. Going around among
my neighbors, with a petition against
this useless, costly, and annoying pro
ceeding, my friend found that every
resident of the street agreed with us in
condemning the project. Moreover, we
ascertained from the contractor that he
offered to do the job for two dollars the
square yard, but had been advised to
charge four, the balance going into the
pockets of the officials. In spite of the
expressed wishes of those chiefly inter
ested, in spite of this flagrant swindle,
our excellent pavement was torn up;
�108
Putnam’s Magazins.
for weeks no vehicle could approach
our doors; boiling tar and heaps of
gravel and knots of laborers made the
whole thoroughfare a nuisance, for
which each victim, whose dwelling bor
dered the way, had to pay three hun
dred dollars; and now that the rubbish
is cleared away, the composite pave
ment laid, and the street open, owing
to the bad quality, the unscientific
preparation of the asphaltum, it is a
mass of black clinging mud, which,
after a rain, is a pitchy morass, and in
dry weather a floating atmosphere of
pulverized dirt and tar. The newspa
pers call it a poultice.
The universal law of vicissitude
finds here the most signal illustration.
Change is not only frequent, but rapid;
not only comparative, but absolute. I
came back to this city last autumn,
after three months’ sojourn at the sea
side, to find a new rector in the church
I attend ; a new cAefin the journal for
which I write; my favorite domestic
nook for a leisure evening, the abode
of intelligent and cordial hospitality, in
the process of demolition, to give place
to a block of stores; my club a scene
of disorder, on account of repairs ; my
broker a bankrupt; my belle a bride;
my tailor, doctor, deutist, and laundress
removed “up-town”—every body and
every thing I had become familiar with
and attached to changed, either locally
or intrinsically; and life, as it were, to
begin anew. It makes a head, with a
large organ of adhesiveness, whirl and
ache to thus perpetually forego the ac
customed.
I experienced, on first landing, a sen
sation, as it were, of this precarious
tenure. Scarcely had the exhilaration
felt on. entering the beautiful harbor
from a ten days’ sojourn on the “ mel
ancholy waste ” of ocean subsided, when,
as we drove up the dock and through
the mud and squalor of the river-side,
the commonplace style of edifice, and
the sight of temporary and unsubstan
tial architecture, depressed my spirits;
then the innumerable and glaring ad
vertisements of quack medicines on
every curb-stone and pile of bricks sug
[July,
gested a reckless, experimental habit—
which was confirmed by the careless
driving of vociferous urchins in butcher
carts or express-wagons. When we
emerged into Broadway, the throng, the
gilded signs, the cheerful rush, and
curious variety of faces and vehicles,
raised my spirits and quickened my ob
servation, while a walk in Fifth avenue
and through the Central Park, the next
day, which was Sunday, and the weath
er beautiful, impressed me cheerily with
the feeling of prosperous and progres
sive life.
Despite these characteristic features,
however, it is often difficult to realize
that I am in America, so many traits
and traces of Europe are visibly. The
other morning, for instance, while at the
pier, waiting to see a friend off in the
French steamer, knots of sailors, like
those we see at Havre and Brest, were
eating soup in the open air, and huck
sters tempting them to buy bead-bas
kets and pin-cushions for their “ sweet
hearts and wives ; ” the garb, the gab,
the odor of garlic, the figure of a priest
here and there, the very hats of some
of the passengers, made the scene like
one at a French quay. There are Ger
man beer-gardens, Italian restaurants,
journals in all the European languages,
tables d'hote, where they only are spo
ken ; churches, theatres, clubs, and co
teries, distinctly national and repre
sentative of the Old World.
Do not rashly infer that my political
principles have changed because of these
critical complaints. No; they are the
same, but my delight in them is chas
tened. I feel that they involve self-sac
rifice, even when triumphant democracy
entails duty, and that of a nature to in
terfere with private taste and individual
enjoyment. Democracy, my friend, is
no pastime, but a peril. Republican
institutions demand the surrender of
much that is pleasant in personal life,
and include responsibilities so grave,
that gayety is quelled and care inaugu
rated—just as the man leaves behind
him, in quitting his father’s roof to
assert himself in the world, much of the
liberty and nurture which made life
�1870.]
Editorial Notes.
pleasant, in order to assume the serious
business of independent existence—ex
cellent as a discipline, noble as a des
tiny, but solemn as a law of action.
Disenchantment, my friend, does not
inevitably imply renunciation; on the
contrary, truth is often ushered in
through a delusive pursuit, as the his
tory of scientific discovery proves. The
moment we regard the equalizing pro
cess going on in the world, as a disci
pline and a destiny, and accept it as a
duty, we recognize what perhaps is,
after all, the practical aim and end
of Christianity—self-sacrifice, humanity,
“ good-will to men,” in place of self
109
hood. Thus imbued and inspired, the
welfare of the race becomes a great per
sonal interest; we are content to suffer
and forego for the advantage of our
fellow-creatures; we look upon life not
as the arena of private success, but of
beneficent cooperation ; and, instead of
complaining of privation and encroach
ment, learn to regard them as a legiti
mate element in the method and means
whereby the mass of men, so long con
demned to ignorance, want, and sordid
labor, are to be raised and reared into a
higher sphere, and harmonized by fellow
ship, freedom, and faith, into a complete
and auspicious development.
EDITORIAL NOTES.
-
BRET HARTE OKCE MORE.
Criticism is too often tame and timid
in its reception of contemporary genius,
because it is without hope; its distrust,
its close and prolonged acquaintance
with mediocrity and pretension, consti
tutes its mental habit, and it is with
difficulty that it drops its patronizing
tone and ceases its frigid comment.
But Bret Harte’s stories mean so much ;
they are so terse, simple, searching, and
unpretentious; they present the most
difficult, novel, and bold situations with
so much conciseness of expression, so
much neatness and force; they take up
and drop the subject with so sure a
sense of dramatic fitness, that the usual
reserve and the common tone of criti* cism before them is priggish and insuf
ferable.
It is not enough to say of them: This
is good work. Something fervid and
emphatic is called for. We must say:
This is the work of a man of genius.
It is something unforeseen ; it is some
thing so natural and actual, so profound
in its significance, so moving in its de
velopment, that you must glow with
the generous emotions which it excites,
and respond to it as to the influences
of nature, and as when heart answereth
to heart in the actual intercourse of liv
ing men and women.
Just as we were all saying to each
other, How much we need a story-writer
who shall treat our American life in an
artistic form, satisfying to the most ex
acting sense of the highest literary
merit—just as we were deploring that
Irving, and Hawthorne, and Poe, men
of another generation, who were retro
spective, and not on a level with the
present hour, were the only men of fine
talent among our story-writers—Francis
Bret Harte, in the newest and remotest
part of our land, gives us an expres
sion of its early, rude, and lawless life,
at once unexpected and potent, and
which shames our distrust of the genius
of our race in its new home. It is an
expression so honest, so free from cant,
so exactly corresponding with its sub
ject, so unsqueamish and hearty, so
manly, that it is to be accepted like a
bit of nature. His stories are like so
many convincing facts; they need no
argument; they lodge themselves in
our minds, and germinate like living
things.
We are struck by the varied powei
which he exhibits, and the diverse emo
tions which he touches, in such narrow
dramatic limits. Within the little frame
of a sketch he is terse, graphic, vivid;
his humor and pathos are irresistible;
his sentiment delicate and true; his
�110
Putnam’s Magazine.
poetry magical and suggestive; his feel
ing of out-of-door life constant and de
lightful. His use of the minor key of
nature, as a contrast to the soiled and
troubled lives of his men and women,
is comparable to the accidental influ
ences which touch and soothe an un
happy man when his attention is caught
by sunlight in wood-paths, or by the
sound of the wind in trees, or by any
of the silencing and flood-like influ
ences that sweep over us when we are
open to the beautiful, the unnamable,
and mysterious.
Bret Harte’s genius is not unlike Rem
brandt’s, so far as it is a matter of art.
Take Miggles—Miggles telling her story
at the feet of the paralytic Jim—take
the description of his old face, with its
solemn eyes; take the alternate gloom
and light that hides or illuminates the
group in Miggles’ cabin; and then con
sider the gleam and grace with which
the portrait of that racy and heroic boy
woman is placed before you. Does it
not touch your sense of the picturesque
as, and is it not unexpected, and start
ling, and admirable, like a sketch by
Rembrandt ? But for the pathos, but
for the “ tears that rise in the heart and
gather to the eyes,” where shall we find
any homely art to be compared with
that ? Beauty in painting or sculpture
may so touch a man. It did so touch
Heine, at the feet of the Venus of Milo.
It may be pathetic to us, as in Da Vinci’s
wonderful heads. But no great plastic
artist, no mere pictorial talent, is potent
over the sources of our tears, as is the
unheralded story-writer from the West
ern shores. In this he employs a means
beyond the reach of Holbein or Hogarth.
We liken Bret Harte to Rembrandt,
rather than to Hogarth or to Holbein—
men of great and sincere genius, and
therefore having an equally great and
sincere trust in actual life—because of
his magic touch, his certainty and sud
denness of expression; his perfect trust
in his subject; because he deals with
the actual in its widest and commonest
aspects, without infecting us with the
dulness of the prosaic; because he is
never formal, never trite; and because
[July,
—unlike Hogarth—he does not consider
the vicious, the unfortunate, the weak,
so as to “ put up the keerds on a chap
from the start.”
He makes us feel our kinship with
the outcast; he draws us by our very
hearts towards the feeble and reckless,
and by a certain something—the felt
inexplicableness of the difference and
yet the equality of men—forbids us to
execrate the sinner as we do the sin.
One may say of him, as of Rembrandt,
that he sees Christ not in the noble and
consecrated, certainly not only in a type
hallowed by centuries of human admi
ration ; but he reveals a Saviour and
friend in the forlorn, in the despised, in
the outcast.
' Will the reader accuse us of extrava
gance, if we say we cannot understand
how a man can read these stories, and
not believe in immortality and in God ?They touch one so profoundly; they ex
alt one’s sense of the redemptive spirit
that may live in a man, and they make
one so humble ! They hush the Phari
see and the materialist who lives so
comfortably under his white shirt-front,
in clean linen, under immaculate con
ditions of self-righteousness. We com
pare Bret Harte to the greatest name in
modern art—Rembrandt—rather than
to Hogarth, because there is no bru
tality, no censure, no made-up mind for
or against his subjects, as in Hogarth.
Rembrandt’s poetry, his honest recep
tion of his subject—all this is in Bret
Harte; but also a grace unknown to
the great Flemish master.
Some have questioned the service he
has done our poor human nature in its
most despised forms, and some have
censured him for not adopting the
Hogarthian method. But it seems to
us his instinct has been his best guide ;
that his morality, his lesson to us, is as
superior to Hogarth’s gross and mate
rial one, as the Sermon on the Mount is
superior to the prayer of the Phari
see.
“ Miggles,” “ Tennessee’s Partner,”
and “ Stumpy,” and “Mother Shipton”
—what significance, what life in these 1
—what “thoughts beyond the reaches
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Rossetti, the painter and poet
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Stillman, W.J.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York, NY]
Collation: 95-110 p. ; 24 cm.
Notes: From Putnam's Magazine (16: July 1980, 95-110 p.) Attribution of magazine and author Information from Virginia Clark's catalogue. Issue also includes ' A disenchanted republican: letter from a German traveller'. Printed in double columns. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[G. P. Putnam's Sons]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1870]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5303
Subject
The topic of the resource
Poetry
Art
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Rossetti, the painter and poet), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
English Poetry
Painting
Poetry in English
Poets