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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
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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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
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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Rossetti, the painter and poet
Creator
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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
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[G. P. Putnam's Sons]
Date
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[1870]
Identifier
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G5303
Subject
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Poetry
Art
Rights
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<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>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
English Poetry
Painting
Poetry in English
Poets