jSiijer^itie oEtiition

REPRESENTATIVE MEN
BEING VOLUME
OF
IV.

EMERSON'S COMPLETE WORKS

REPRESENTATIVE MEN

SEVEN LECTURES

BY

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

BtiBn antr Ettimti Ctittion

BOSTON
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
New
York: 11 East Seventeenth Street

1888

Copyright, 1876,

Bt RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Copyright, 1883,

Bt

EDWARD

W. EMERSON.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge

Electrotyped and Printed

by H.

0.

Houghton

& Co.

CONTENTS,
PAO>
I.

Uses op
;

Gkeat Men
or,

n. Plato

The Philosopher ThE MySTIC The Poet

Plato
III.

New Keadings
;

SWEDENBORG
;

OR,

.... ....
.

39
78 89

IV. Montaigne

or,
;

The Skeptic
.

.141
.

V. Shakspeare

OR,

179

VI. Napoleon; or.

VII.

The Man

of the "World

,211
247

Goethe

or,

The Writeb

USES OF GEEAT MEN.

I.

USES OF GREAT MEN.

It

is

natural to believe in great men.

If the

companions of our childhood should turn out to be

heroes,

and their condition

regal, it

would not
that

sur-

prise us.

All mythology opens with demigods, and

is

the circumstance

high and poetic

is,

their

genius

is

paramount.
first

In the legends of the Gau-

tama, the

men

ate the earth

and found

it deli-

ciously sweet.

Nature seems to
world
is

exist for the

excellent.

The
:

upheld by the veracity of good

men

they

make

the earth wholesome.

They who

lived with

them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable only in our belief in such society and, actually or ideally, we manage to live with superiors. We call our children and our lands by
their names.

Their names are wrought into the

verbs of language, their works and effigies are in

our houses, and every circumstance of the day

calls

re-

an anecdote of them.
search after the great

The

man

is

the dream of

10
youtli

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
and the most
serious occupation of

manhood.

We
put

travel into foreign parts to find his works,

in

if possible, to

get a glimpse of him.

But we are
say, the

off

with fortune instead.

;

You
;

Eng;

lish are practical

the Germans
is

are hospitable

Valencia the climate

delicious
is

and

in the hills

of the Sacramento there

gold for the gathering.

Yes, but I do not travel to find comfortable, rich

and hospitable people, or

cost too

clear sky, or ingots that

much.

But

if

there were any magnet that

would point
the persons
ful,

to the countries

and houses where are and put myself on

who

are intrinsically rich and power-

I would sell all and

buy

it,

the road to-day.

The

race

goes with us on their credit.

city is a

The

knowledge that in the

man who

invented

the railroad, raises the credit of all the citizens.

But enormous populations, if they be beggars, are disgusting, like moving cheese, like hills of ants or
of fleas,

the more, the worse.

is

Our

religion

the love and cherishing of these

of fable are the shining

patrons.

The gods

mo-

ments of great men.

one mould.

We run

all

our vessels into

of Judaism,

Our

colossal theologies

Christism, Buddhism, Mahometism, are the neces-

sary and structural action of the

human mind.
going into a

The student

of history

is

like a

man

warehouse to buy cloths or carpets.

He

fancies he

USES OF GREAT MEN.

has a

11

find that his

rosettes

new article. If he go to tlie new stuff still repeats

factory, he shall

the scrolls and

which are found on the interior walls of

of

the pyramids of Thebes.

cation

the

Our theism is the purifihuman mind. Man can paint, or

make, or think, nothing but man.

He

believes

that the great material elements had their origin

from

his thought.

And

our philosophy finds one

essence collected or distributed.

If

service

now we proceed to inquire into the kinds we derive from others, let us be warned
modern
studies,

of

of

the danger of

and begin low

love, or

enough.

We

must not contend against

deny the substantial existence of other people.

I
so-

know

not what would happen to us.

We

have

cial strengths.

Our

affection towards others cre-

ates a sort of vantage or purchase

which nothing

wiU supply.
not do alone.

I can do that by another which I canI can say to you what I cannot
first

say to myself.

Other men are lenses through

which we read our own minds.

as are good of their kind

Each man
is,

seeks

those of different quality from his own, and such

;

that

he seeks other

men, and the other est.

the more
pure.
it is

The

stronger the nature,

reactive.

Let us have the quality

alone.

A little genius let us leave

men
is,

main

difference betwixt

whether they attend their

12

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
affair or not.

own

Man

is tliat

noble endogenous

plant whicli grows, like the palm,

from

witliin out-

ward.

His own

affair,

though impossible to

others,

he can open with celerity and in sport.

to sugar to

It is easy
salt.

be sweet and to nitre to be

We
I

take a great deal of pains to waylay and entrap

that which of itself will fall into

our hands.

count him a great

man who

inhabits a

higher

sphere of thought, into which other

labor and difficulty
;

men

rise

with

he has but to open his eyes to

see things in a true light

and in large

relations,

whilst

they must

make

painful corrections
error.

and
His

keep a vigilant eye on many sources of

service to us
is

of like sort.

It costs a beautiful

person no exertion to paint her image on our eyes

yet

how

splendid

is

that benefit

It costs

no more
men.
'"''Peu

for a wise soul to convey his quality to other

And
is

every one can do his best thing easiest.

de moyens^ heaucoup d'effSV^

He

is

great

who

what he

is

from nature, and who never reminds

related to us,

us of others.

But he must be
tell

and our life receive

I cannot

from him some promise of explanation. what I would know

;

but I have observed there

are persons who, in their character

and

actions, an-

swer questions which I have not

skill to put.

One

man

answers some question which none of his conis

temporaries put, and

isolated.

The past and

USES OF GREAT MEN.

men

13

passing religions and philosophies answer some

other question.
sibilities,

Certain

affect us as rich pos-

but helpless to themselves and to their

sport perhaps of some instinct that
;

times,

the

rules in the air

they do not speak

;

to our want.

But the great are near we know them at sight. They satisfy expectation and fall into place. What is good is effective, generative; makes for itself room, food and allies. A sound apple produces
seed,

a hybrid does
makes
its

not.

Is a

man
is

in his place,

he

is

constructive, fertile, magnetic, inundating ar-

mies with his purpose, which

thus executed.

The

river

mate idea makes

its

own shores, and each legitiown channels and welcome,

it.
;

harvests for food, institutions for expression, weap-

ons to fight with and disciples to explain

true artist has the planet for his pedestal

The

the ad-

venturer, after years of strife, has nothing broader

than his o^vn shoes.

Our common
is

discourse respects two kinds of

use or service from superior men.

agreeable to the early belief of

Direct giving

men;

direct

giving of material or metaphysical aid, as of health,

eternal youth, fine senses, arts of healing, magical

The boy believes there is him wisdom. Churches believe in imputed merit. But, in strictness, we are not much cognizant of direct serving. Man ia
power and prophecy.
a teacher

who can

sell

14

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
is

endogenous, and education

aid

his unfolding.

The
thus

we have from
is

others

is

mechanical compared

with the discoveries of nature in us.

learned
remains.
delightful in the doing,

What

is

Right ethics
Gift
is

and the effect are central and go from the

contrary to the law of the
is

soul outward.

universe.

Serving others
to myself.
'

serving us.

I must
says the

absolve
spirit
:

me
*

Mind
?
'

thy

affair,'

coxcomb, would you meddle with the

Indirect service
ia

skies, or
left.

with other people

Men have a pictorial or representative quality,

in the intellect.

and serve us

Behmen and Sweden-

borg saw that things were representative.

are also representative;
first,

Men
sec-

of

things,

and

ondly, of ideas.

As

plants convert the minerals

into

food for

animals, so each
in nature to
electricity,

man converts some raw material human use. The inventors of fire,
glass, linen, silk,
;

magnetism, iron, lead,

cotton

the makers of tools

;

the inventor of deci;

mal notation
musician,

the geometer

the engineer

the
all,

severally

make an

easy

way
some

for

through unknown and impossible confusions.

Each
district
is
;

man

is

by

secret liking connected with

of nature,

whose agent and interpreter he

of

as

Linnaeus,
lichens
;

plants

Huber, of bees
of pears
; ;

Fries, of

Van Mons,

Dalton, of atomic

forms

Euclid, of lines

Newton, of fluxions.

USES OF GREAT MEN.

15

A man is a centre for nature, running out threads

of relation througli every thing, fluid

and
;

solid,

material and elemental.

The earth

rolls
:

every

clod and stone comes to the meridian

so every
its

organ, function, acid, crystal, grain of dust, has

relation to the brain.

It waits long, but its turn

its parasite,

comes.

Each plant has

its

and each

cre-

ated thing

lover

and

poet.

Justice has already

been done to steam, to

iron, to

wood, to
;

coal, to

loadstone, to iodine, to corn

and cotton
arts
!

few materials are yet used by our

of creatures
tant.

how The mass

but

and

of qualities are still hid

if

and expec-

It

would seem as

each waited, like the

tales,

enchanted princess in fairy

for a destined

human

deliverer. to the

Each must be disenchanted and

day in human shape.
In the

walk forth

history of discovery, the ripe and latent truth seems

to have fashioned a brain for itself.

magnet
to

must be made man

entertain
If

in

some Gilbert, or Swedenborg,

or Oersted, before the general

its

mind can come

powers.

we

limit ourselves to the first advantages,

a sober grace adheres to the mineral and botanic

kingdoms, which, in the highest moments, comes

up as the charm of nature,

the

glitter of the

spar, the sureness of affinity, the veracity of angles.

Light and darkness, heat and

food, sweet

cold,

hunger and
circle

and

sour, solid, liquid

and gas,

16

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
tlieir

US round in a wreath of pleasures, and, "by agreeable quarrel, beguile tbe day of
life.

The

eye repeats every day the

"

first

eulogy on things,

He saw

that they were good."

;

We

know where
all

to find

them

and these performers are relished

little

the more, after a

races.

experience of the pretending

also to higher advantageso
it

We are entitled
is

Something
humanized.

wanting to science until

has been

The

table of logarithms

is

one thing,

and

its vital

play in botany, music, optics and archi-

tecture, another.

There are advancements to numlittle

bers,

anatomy, architecture, astronomy,

first,

sus-

pected at
will,

when, by union with

life

intellect

and
in

they ascend into the

and reappear

conversation, character

and

politics.

But

this

comes

later.

We

speak now only of

our acquaintance with them in their own sphere

and the way

in

which they seem to fascinate and

draw to them some genius who occupies himself

with one thing,
all his
life long.

The

possibility

of interpretation lies in the identity of the observer

with the observed.

celestial side
;

Each material thing has

and necessary sphere where

its

has

its

translation, through humanity,

it

into the spiritual

plays a part as indestructible as any other.

And
:

to these, their ends, all things continually ascend.

The gases gather to chemic lump arrives

the
at

solid

firmament

the

the plant,

and grows;

USES OF GREAT MEN.

arrives at
tlie

17
;

quadruped, and walks

arrives at

the man, and thinks.

But

also the constituency

determines the vote of the representative.

not only representative, but participant.

He

is

Like can

only be

known by
is

like.
is

about them

that he

The reason why he knows of them he has just come

;

out of nature, or from being a part of that thing.

Animated

chlorine

knows

of chlorine,

and incarnate
;

zinc, of zinc.

Their quality makes his career

and

he can variously publish their virtues, because they

compose him.

Man, made
;

of the dust of the world,

does not forget his origin

and

all

that

is

yet inan-

imate will one day speak and reason.

nature will have
its

Unpublished
Shall

whole secret

told.

we

say that quartz mountains will pulverize into innu-

merable Werners,

Von Buchs and Beaumonts, and

the laboratory of the atmosphere holds in solution

know not what Berzeliuses and Davys ? Thus we sit by the fire and take hold on

the

poles of the earth.

This quasi omnipresence sup-

plies the imbecility of our condition.

In one of
earth meet

those celestial days

when heaven and

once

and adorn each

can only spend

other, it seems
it
:

heads, a thousand bodies,

its

a poverty that we we wish for a thousand that we might celebrate

immense beauty

in

this fancy ?

WeU,
2

in

good

many ways and places. Is faith, we are multiplied

we adopt
their labors
I

by our proxies.
VOL. IV.

How

easily

18

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
to

Every ship that comes

from Columbus.
mer.

America got
is

its

chart

Every novel

a debtor to Hofore-

Every carpenter who shaves with a

is girt all

plane borrows the genius of a forgotten inventor.

Life

round with a zodiac of

sciences, the

contributions of

men who have

perished to add

their point of light to our sky.

jurist, physician,

Engineer, broker,

moralist, theologian,
science,

man, inasmuch as he has any

and every
is

a definer

and map-maker
our condition.
enrich us.

of the latitudes

and longitudes of and

These road-makers on every hand

extend the area of
life

We must
new

multiply our relations.

We

are as

much

gainers

by finding a new property in the old earth as by

acquiring a
planet.

We are too passive in the

terial or semi-material aids.

reception of these ma-

We must not be sacks

step,

and stomachs.
ter served

To ascend one

we are betis

through our sympathy.

Activity

con-

tagious.

Looking where others

look,

and conversnot fight

ing with the same things,

we

catch the charm which

lured them.

Napoleon

said, "

You must

too often with one enemy, or you will teach

him

all

your art of war."

vigorous mind, and

Talk much with any man of

we

acquire very fast the habit

of looking at things in the

same

light,

and on each

occurrence

we

anticipate his thought.

Men

g,re

helpful through the intellect and the

USES OF GREAT MEN.

affections.

19

Other help I find a

false appearance.
fire,

If

you
as

affect to give
it

me

bread and

I perceive
it

that I pay for

the full price, and at last

leaves
:

me
all

it

found me, neither better nor worse

is

but
It

mental and moral force

a positive good.

goes out from you, whether you will or not, and

profits

me whom you

never thought

of.

I cannot

even hear of personal vigor of any kind, great

power of performance, without fresh

resolution.
Cecil's

We
can

are emulous of all that

man

can do.

saying of Sir Walter Raleigh,

toil terribly,"
is

"I know

that he

an

electric touch.

Clarendon's portraits,
of an industry

of

So are Hampden, " who was

to be tired out or

and vigilance not

wearied by the most laborious, and of parts not to

be imposed on by the most subtle and sharp, and

of a personal courage equal to his best parts of Falkland, "
truth, that
;

"

who was

so

severe an adorer of

he could as easily have given himself

leave to steal, as to dissemble."

We

cannot read

Plutarch without a tingling of the blood; and I accept the saying of the Chinese Mencius: " sage

is

the instructor of a hundred ages.

of,

When

the

manners of Loo are heard

telligent,

the stupid become in-

and the wavering, determined."

the moral of biography; yet
it

This

is

is

hard

for departed

men

to touch the quick like our

own

companions, whose names

may

not last as long.

20

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
is

What

he

whom

I never think of?

Whilst in
There
a

every solitude are those

who

succor our genius and

is

stimulate us in wonderful manners.

power

in love to

divine another's destiny better

than that other can, and, by heroic encouragements,

hold him to his task.
nal as
in us ?
selves,
its

What

has friendship so

sigis

sublime attraction to whatever virtue

We will never more think cheaply of ourWe are piqued to some purpose, or of life.
will

and the industry of the diggers on the raiboad

not again shame us.

Under

this

head too

falls that

homage, very pure

as I think, which all ranks pay to the hero of the

day, from Coriolanus and Gracchus

down

to Pitt,

Lafayette, Wellington, Webster, Lamartine.

the shouts in the street

enoiigh.

They
!

delight

Hear The people cannot see him Here is a head in a man.

!

and a trunk

What

a front

what eyes

Atlan-

tean shoulders, and the whole carriage heroic, with

equal inward force to guide the great machine

This pleasure of

f tdl

expression to that which, in

is

their private experience

usually cramped and

higher,

obstructed, runs also

much
is

and

is

the se-

cret of the reader's joy in literary genius.

is

Nothing

kept back.

There
ore.

fire

enough to fuse the

principal merit

mountain of

Shaksj)eare's

may be conveyed

in saying that he of all

men

best

understands the English language, and can say

USES OF GREAT MEN.

what he
will.

21

Yet these unchoked channels and

Shakspeare's

floodgates of expression are only health or fortu-

nate constitution.

name

suggests

other and purely intellectual benefits.

Senates and sovereigns have no compliment, with

their medals, swords

and armorial

coats, like the

addressing to a
certain height,

human being
is

thoughts out of a
his intelligence.

and presupposing
in
if

This honor, which

scarcely twice

possible in personal intercourse

a lifetime, genius perpetually

pays

contented
is

proffer

accepted.

now and then in a century the The indicators of the values of

of

matter are degraded to a sort of cooks and confectioners,

ideas.

on the appearance of the indicators

is

Genius

the naturalist or geographer of

the supersensible regions, and draws their

map

and, by acquainting us with

new

fields of activity,

cools our affection for the old.

These are at once

accepted as the reality, of which the world

we have

conversed with

is

the show.

We
there

go to the gymnasium and the swimming-

school to see the

is

power and beauty of the body

kinds
as feats

the like pleasure and a higher benefit from

all
;

witnessing intellectual feats of

of

memory, of mathematical combination, great

versatility

power of abstraction, the transmutings of the imagination, even

and concentration,

as

these acts expose the invisible organs

and members

22
of the mind,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
which respond, member for member,

to the parts of the body.

For we thus enter a new

gymnasium, and learn to choose

can, without aid

men by their truest

who
sense,

marks, taught, with Plato, " to choose those

from the eyes or any other

proceed to truth and to being."

Foremost among

these activities are the summersaults, spells

resurrections wrought
this wakes,

and

by the imagination.

When

man seems

to multiply ten times or

It opens the delicious

a thousand times his force.

sense of indeterminate size
cious mental habit.

and
in

inspires

an auda-

We

are as elastic as the gas

of gunpowder,

and a sentence

a book, or a word
our fancy, and

dropped in conversation,

sets free

instantly our heads are bathed with galaxies, and

our feet tread the floor of the Pit.

fit is

And

this bene-

real because

we

are entitled to these enlarge-

ments, and once having passed the bounds shall

never again be quite the miserable pedants we were.

The high
that some
all

functions of the intellect are so allied

imaginative power usually appears in

eminent minds, even in arithmeticians of the

but especially in meditative

first class,

men

of

an

intuitive habit of thought.

This class serve

us, so

that they have the perception of identity and the

perception of reaction.

The

eyes of Plato, Shak-

speare, Swedenborg, Goethe, never shut on either

of these laws.

The perception

of these laws

is

USES OF GREAT MEN.

kind of metre of the mind.
through failure to see them.
Little

23
little

minds are

Even
herald.

these feasts have their surfeit.

Our

de-

light in reason

degenerates into idolatry of the

Especially

when a mind
of

of

powerful

method has instructed men, we of oppression. The dominion

con, of

find the examples

Aristotle,

the

Ptolemaic astronomy, the credit of Luther, of Ba-

Locke

in

religion the history of hiesects

rarchies, of saints,

and the

which have taken

Alas
imbecility of

the

name

of each founder, are in point.

is

every
is

man

such a victim.

The

men
It is

always inviting the impudence of power.

the delight of vulgar talent to dazzle and to blind the beholder.

But true genius seeks

True genius

to defend us

from

itself.

will not impoverish, but

senses.

will liberate,

and add new

If a wise

man

should appear in our village he would create, in

those

who conversed with him, a new

by opening

consciousness

of wealth,

their eyes to unobserved ad-

vantages
equality,

he would establish a sense of immovable

calm us with assurances that we coidd not

;

be cheated

as every one

would discern the checks

and gmaranties of condition.

their mistakes

The

rich

would see

and poverty, the poor

all this

their escapes

and

their resources.

But nature brings

Rotation
is

about in due time.

soul
is

her remedy.

The

impatient of

24

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
Housekeepers say
valuable, "

masters and eager for change.

of a domestic

who has been

long enough."

She had

lived with

me

We
When

are tendencies,

or rather, symptoms, and none of us complete.

We
Ro-

touch and go, and sip the foam of

tation
is

many

lives.

the law of nature.

nature removes

a great man, people explore the horizon for a successor

is
;

but none comes, and none

will.

His

class

extinguished with him.

In some other and quite

will

different field the next

man

appear

not Jef-

ferson, not Franklin, but

now a

great salesman,
fishes,

then a road-contractor, then a student of

then a buffalo-hunting explorer, or a semi-savage

Western

general.

Thus we make a stand against

;

our rougher masters

a finer remedy.

but against the best there

is

The power which they communiWhen we are exalted by ideas, cate is not theirs. we do not owe this to Plato, but to the idea, to
which
also Plato

was debtor.

I must not forget that

to

we have a
is

special debt

a single

class.

Life

a scale of degrees.
our great

Between rank and rank

wide intervals.

of

men

are

Mankind

have in all ages attached

themselves to a few persons

who

either

by the
large-

quality of that idea they embodied or

by the

ness of their reception were entitled to the position of leaders

qualities of

and

law-givers.

These teach us the

to the con-

primary nature,

admit us

USES OF GREAT MEN.

stitution of things.

25

We

swim, day by day, on a

effectually
air,

river of delusions

and are

amused with

houses and towns in the

of

which the men

about us are dupes.

lucid intervals

we

say,

But life is a sincerity. In Let there be an entrance

'

opened for
cap

me

into realities

I have

worn the

fool's

too long.'

We will
politics.

know

the meaning of our

economies and
if

Give us the cipher, and

persons and things are scores of a celestial music, us read off the strains.
;

let

We have
With

been cheated

of our reason

yet there have been sane men,

who
they

enjoyed a rich and related existence.

What

know, they know for

a new secret
of.

us.

each new mind,

nature transpires; nor can the

Bible be closed until the last great

man is born. men correct the delirium of the animal considerate and engage us to spirits, make us
These

new aims and powers.

kind

The veneration

of

man-

selects these for the highest place.

Witness

the multitude of statues, pictures

and memorials

which

recall

their
:

house and ship

genius in every city, village,

" Ever their phantoms arise before us.

Our loftier brothers, but one in blood; At bed and table they lord it o'er us With looks of beauty and words of good."

How

to illustrate the distinctive benefit of ideas,

the service rendered by those

who

introduce moral

26
truths into
in all
If I

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
the general

mind

am

plagued,
prices.

my

living, witli

a perpetual

tariff of

work

in

my garden

and prune an

apple-tree,

am

well enough entertained,

and could continue

indefinitely in the Jike occupation.

But

it

comes

to

mind

that a day

is

gone, and I have got this

I go to Boston or
affairs
:

precious nothing done.

New
they

York and run up and down on my

are sped, but so
is

the day.

am

vexed by the
trifling

recollection of this price I

have paid for a

advantage.

remember the peau d'dne on which

I go to a con-

whoso

sat

should have his desire, but a piece of

the skin was gone for every wish.

vention of philanthropists.

Do what

I can, I
if

cannot keep

my

eyes off the clock.

But

there

should appear in the company some gentle soul

who knows
lina or

little

of j)ersons or parties, of Carodis-

Cuba, but who announces a law that

these particulars,

poses
the

and

so

certifies

me

of

equity which checkmates

self-seeker,

every false player,

bankrupts every

and apprises me of

my

independence on any conditions of country,

or time, or

human
I

body,

that

man

liberates

me

I forget the clock.

to persons.

I pass out of the sore relation

am

healed of

my
is

hurts.

am

made immortal by apprehending my

of incorruptible goods. of

possession

Here

great competition

rich

and poor.

We

live in

a market, where

USES OF GREAT MEN.

27
;

only so

I have so

much wheat, or wool, or land and much more, every other must have
I

if

so

much

less.

seem

to

have no

good
is

without

breach of good manners.

Nobody

glad in the
is

gladness of another, and our system

one of
child of

war, of an injurious superiority.

the Saxon race
is
is

Every
to

educated to wish to be

first.

It

our system

and a man comes

regrets, envies

measure his
of his

greatness

by the

and hatreds
there
is

competitors.

But

in these

new fields
all

room

here are no self-esteems, no exclusions.

I admire great

men

of

classes, those
;

who
and

stand for facts, and for thoughts

I like rough

smooth, " Scourges of God," and " Darlings of the

human

race."

I like the first Caesar

and Charles
I

v., of S]3ain;

and Charles XII., of Sweden; Rich;

ard Plantagenet

and Bonaparte,
man, an

in France.

applaud a
office
;

sufficient

officer

equal to his

captains, ministers, senators.

1 like a master

standing firm on legs of iron, well-born, rich, handsome, eloquent, loaded with advantages, drawing
all

men by

fascination into tributaries

and supporters

of his power.

Sword and

staff,

or talents sword-

like or staff-like, carry

But
and
ible

I find
all

on the work of the world. him greater when he can abolish himself heroes, by letting in this element of reason,

irrespective of persons, this subtilizer

and

irresist-

upward

force, into

our thought, destroying

in-

28
dividualism
is
;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
the power so great that the potentate
is
;

nothing.

Then he

a monarch a pontiff

stitution to his people

who gives a conwho preaches the

from

equality of souls
their

and

releases his servants

barbarous homages; an emperor who can

spare his empire.

But I intended
ness,

to specify, with a little minute^

service.

two or three points of

Nature never

spares the

opium or nepenthe, but wherever she

defect,

mars her creatm^e with some deformity or

lays her poppies plentifully on the bruise,

and the
the

sufferer goes joyfully through life, ignorant of the

ruin and incapable of seeing

it,

though

all

world point their finger at

worthless and offensive
existence
selves the
is

it

every day.
of society,

The
whose

members

a social pest, invariably think themill-used people alive,

most

and never get

over their astonishment at

selfishness

the ingratitude

and

of

their

contemporaries.

Our globe
Is
it

discovers

its

hidden virtues, not only in heroes and

archangels, but in gossips

and nurses.

not

a rare contrivance that lodged the due inertia in

every creature, the conserving, resisting energy,
the anger at being

waked

or changed

Altogether
is

independent of the intellectual force in each

pride of opinion, the security that

the

Not the

feeblest

we are grandame, not a mowing

right.
idiot^

USES OF GREAT MEN.

but uses what spark of perception and faculty
left, to

29
is

chuelde and triumph in his or her opinion

all

over the absurdities of

the rest.

Difference

from me

is

the measure of absurdity.

Not one
it

has a misgiving of being wrong.

bright thought that

Was

not a

made

things cohere with this

bitumen, fastest of cements?

of
this

But, in the midst

chuckle of

self-gratulation,

some

figure

goes by which Thersites too can love and admire.

This

is

he that should marshall us the way we

were going.
out Plato
possibility

There

is

no end

to his aid.

Withseem
love
to

we should almost
of a

lose our faith in the

reasonable book.

want but one, but we want one.

unlimited

We We We

to

associate with heroic persons, since our receptivity

is
;

and, with the great, our thoughts

easily

and manners

become
in a

great.

are all

wise in capacity, though so few in energy.

There
all

needs but one wise

wise, so rapid
is

man

company and

are

the contagion.

Great men are thus a collyrium to clear our eyes

from egotism and enable us

their works.

to see other people

and

But there are vices and follies incident to whole populations and ages. Men resemble their contemporaries even more than their proIt is observed in old couples, or in per-

genitors.

sons

who have been housemates

grow
like,

for a course of

years, that they

and

if

they should live

30
Ions: enou2:h

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
we should not be
able to

know them

apart.

Nature abhors

these complaisances which

threaten to melt the world into a lump, and hastens to break

up such maudlin

agglutinations.

The

like assimilation goes on between

men
;

of one town,

of one sect, of one political party

and the ideas of

the time are in the air, and infect all

it.

who breathe

Viewed from any high

point, this city of

New
keep

York, yonder city of London, the Western

tion,

civiliza-

would seem a bundle of

insanities.

We

each other in countenance

and exasperate by emu-

lation the frenzy of the time.

The

shield against

the stingings of conscience

is

the universal practice,

it is

or our contemporaries.

Again,

very easy to

be as wise and good as your companions.

We

learn of our contemporaries what they know, with-

out effort, and almost through the pores of the

skin.

We

catch

it

by sympathy, or as a wife
and moral elevations
stop.
step.

ar-

rives at the intellectual

of her

husband.
hardly can

But we stop where they

Very

we take another

The

great, or

such as hold of nature and transcend fashions by

their fidelity to universal ideas, are

saviors

from

these federal errors, and defend us from our con-

temporaries.

They
all

are the exceptions which

like.

we
is

want, where

grows

A foreign

greatness

the antidote for cabalism.

Thus we feed on

genius,

and refresh ourselves

USES OF GREAT MEN,

31

from too much conversation with our mates, and exult in the clej)th of nature in that direction in

which

he leads

us.

What

indemnification
!

is

one great

man

for populations of pigmies

Every mother
the rest should
in the ex-

wishes one son a genius, though

all

be mediocre.

But a new danger appears

man.
place.

cess of influence of the great

His attractions

warp us from our

lings

We have
Ah

become under!

and
is

intellectual suicides.

yonder in the
quali-

horizon
ties,

our help

other great men, new

last.

counterweights and checks on each other.

We
Ev-

cloy of the honey of each peculiar greatness.

ery hero becomes a bore at

Perhaps Voltaire

was not bad-hearted, yet he said of the good Jesus,

even, " I pray you, let

me

never hear that man's

virtues of

name

again."

They cry up the

Washington,

" Damn

George " is Washington George

!

the poor Jacobin's whole speech

and

confutation.

But

it

is

human

nature's indispensable defence.

The

centripetence

augments

the

centrifugence.

We

balance one

man

with his opposite, and the

\iealth of the state

depends on the see-saw.

to the use of

There
heroes.

is

however a speedy limit

is

Every genius
and seem

defended from approach

by

attractive,

They are very own but we are hindered on all sides from approach. The more we are drawn, the more we are repelled.
quantities of unavailableness.
at a distance our
:

32

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
is

There

something not solid in the good that

us.

is

done for

The

best discovery the discoverer

makes for himself. It has something unreal for his companion until he too has substantiated it.
It seems as if the

Deity dressed each soul which he

sends into nature in certain virtues and powers not

communicable to other men, and sending

it

to per-

form one more turn through the

wrote
only^''
'^

circle of beings,

Not transferable^^ and

"

Good for this

soul.

tn}?
is

on these garments of the

There

somewhat deceptive about the intercourse of minds.

The boundaries
crossed.

are invisible, but they are never

is

There

such good will to impart, and

such good will to receive, that each threatens to

become the other

and
so

but the law of individuality

:

colI,

lects its secret strength

you are you, and I

am

we remain.
to remain itself
;

For nature wishes every thing and whilst every individual

of the universe,

strives to

grow and
its

ex-

clude and to exclude and grow, to the extremities

and

to impose the

law of

being

on every other creature. Nature steadily aims to

protect each

Each is selfthan the marked Nothing is more defended. power by which individuals are guarded from indiagainst every other.
viduals, in a world

where every benefactor becomes

where

so easily a malefactor only

activity into places
it

by continuation of his is not due ; where chil-

USES OF GREAT MEN.

dren seem so
parents,

33
their foolish

much

at the

mercy of
all

and where almost

men

are too social

and

interfering.

We

rightly speak of the guar-

dian angels of children.

How
!

superior in their se-

curity from infusions of evil persons,

ity

from vulgartheir

and second thought

beauty

They shed
objects

own

abundant

on

the

they behold.

Therefore they are not at the mercy of such poor

educators as

we

adults.

If

we

huff and chide

them

they soon come not to mind

it

and get a

self-reli-

ance

and

if

we indulge them

to folly, they learn

the limitation elsewhere.

We need not
generous trust

fear excessive influence.

is

more
thou

permitted.

Serve

the great.
office

Stick at no humiliation.
canst
render.

Grudge no

Be

the

limb of their body, the

breath of their mouth.

Compromise thy egotism.

and
:

Who cares for that,

nobler
?

so thou gain aught wider

Never mind the taunt of Boswellism

the

devotion

may

easily be greater than the wretched

pride which
other
:

is

guarding

its

own
;

skirts.

Be

an-

not thyself, but a Platonist

;

not a soul, but

;

a Christian

not a naturalist, but a Cartesian

not

a poet, but a Shaksperian.

In vain, the wheels of

all

tendency will not stop, nor will

ertia, fear, or of love itself

the forces of in-

hold thee there.

On,

and forever onward

monad

or wheel-insect
3

The microscope observes a among the infusories circu-

VOL.. IV.

34

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
Presently a dot appears on the
slit,

lating in water.

animal, which enlarges to a

and

it

becomes
detach-

two perfect animals.

The ever-proceeding
live

ment appears not

ents.

less in all

thought and in society.

without their parit,

Children think they cannot

But, long before they are aware of

the

black dot has appeared and the detachment taken

place.

Any

accident will

now

reveal to

them

their

independence.

But great men

there caste ?
is

the

word

is

injurious.

Is

there fate ?
?

What
'

becomes of the

promise to virtue

The thoughtful youth laments

Generous and handbut look at yonder
is

the superfoetation of nature.

some,' he says,
'

is

your hero

poor Paddy, whose country

look at his

his

wheelbarrow

whole nation of Paddies.'

Why

are

the masses, from the

for knives
leaders,

and powder ?

dawn of history down, food The idea dignifies a few

who have

sentiment, opinion, love, self-de;

votion

and they make war and death sacred

of

but w^hat for the wretches

kill ?

The cheapness
It is as real

whom they hire and man is every day's trag;

edy.

a loss that others should be

for

low as that we should be low

society.

we must have

Is
is

it

a reply to these suggestions to say. Society

:

a Pestalozzian school

all

are teachers and pu-

USES OF GREAT MEN.

pils in

35

turn ?

We are equally served

Men who know
company
you
tlie

by receiving
same things
other.

and by imparting.
are

not long the best

to

for each

But bring

each an intelligent person of another

it is

experience, and

as

if

let off

water from a

lake by cutting a lower basin.

ical

It

seems a mechanit is

advantage, and great benefit

to

each

speaker, as he can
himself.

now

paint out his thought to

fast,

We

pass

very

in

our

personal
if

moods, from dignity to dependence.

stand and serve,

And

any

appear never to assume the chair, but always to

it

is

because

v>^e

do not see the

company

in a sufficiently long period for the whole

rotation of parts to
call the masses,

come about.

As

to

what we
are no
;

and common men,

All

there

common men.
true

men

are at last of a size

and
Fair

art is only possible

its

on the conviction that

freshest laurels to all

every talent has

apotheosis somewhere.

play and an open field and

who have won them

until he has

But heaven reserves an

equal scope for every creature.

Each

is

uneasy

produced his private ray unto the conits last

cave sphere and beheld his talent also in

nobility

and

exaltation.

The heroes

of the hour are relatively great

;

of

a faster growth

or they are such in

whom,
which

at the

moment

of success, a quality is ripe

is

then
quali-

in request.

Other days

will

demand other

36
ties.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
Some
rays escape the

want a

finely

adapted eye.

common Ask tlie

observer, and

great

man
;

if

there be none greater.

His companions are

and
into

not the less great but the more that society cannot
see them.

Nature never sends a great

man

the planet without confiding the secret to another

soul.

One

gracious fact emerges from these studies,

is

that there

true ascension in our love.

The

rep-

utations of the nineteenth century will one

day be
writ-

quoted to prove

its

barbarism.

The
infer

genius of huis

manity
ply

is

the real subject whose biography

ten in our annals.

We must

much, and sup-

many chasms
is

in the record.

The
life is

history of

the universe
cal.
is

symptomatic, and

mnemoni-

No man,
;

in all the procession of

famous men,

reason or illumination or that essence

we were

looking for
of

but

is

an exhibition, in some quarter,

new possibilities. Could we one day complete the immense figure which these flagrant points comThe study of many individuals leads us to pose
!

an elemental region wherein the individual

or wherein all touch by their summits.

is lost,

Thought
This
the

and feeling that break out there cannot be im-

pounded by any fence of

key
to the

personality.

is

power of

the greatest men,

their spirit
travels

diffuses itself.

A new quality of

mind

by

night and by day, in concentric circles from

its ori-

USES OF GREAT MEN.

gin,

37
:

and publishes
all

itself

union of

minds appears intimate

by unknown methods the what gets ad;

;

mission to one, cannot be kept out of any other

the

smallest acquisition of truth or of energy, in any

quarter,
souls.
is

so

much good

to the

commonwealth

of

If the disparities of talent

and position van-

ish

when
is

the individuals are seen in the duration

which

necessary to complete the career of each,

even more swiftly the seeming injustice disappears

when we ascend to the central identity of individuals, and know that they are made
substance which ordaineth and doeth.

all

the

of the

The genius

of

humanity

is

the right point of

view of history.

who
pass

exhibit

The qualities abide; the men them have now more, now less, and
is

away

the qualities remain on another brow.

No

experience
:

more

familiar.
;

Once you saw

is

phoenixes

they are gone

the world

not there-

fore disenchanted.

The

vessels

on which you read

sacred emblems turn out to be

common
sacred,

pottery;

but the sense of the pictures

is

and you

may

still

read them transferred to the walls of the

tea(3hers serve us personally,

world.

For a time our

as metres or milestones of progress.

Once they

were angels of knowledge and their figures touched

the sky.
culture

Then we drew near, saw their means, and limits and they yielded their place
;

to other geniuses.

Happy,

if

a few names remain

38
SO high that

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
we have not been
But
at last

able to read

them

nearer,

and age and comparison have not robbed

ray.

them of a

we

shall cease to look in

men

for completeness,

and

shall content ourselves

with their social and delegated quality.

respects the individual
tive, like
is

All that

temporary and prospec-

the individual himself,

who

is

ascending

out of his limits into a catholic existence.

We

have never come at the true and best benefit of any

we believe him an original force. In the moment when he ceases to help us as a cause, he begins to help us more as an effect. Then he appears as an exponent of a vaster mind and
genius so long as
will.

The opaque

self

becomes transparent with

the light of the First Cause.

Yet, within the limits of agency,

that there may we may say great be greater men. The destiny of organized nature It is is amelioration, and who can tell its limits ?
for

human men exist

education and

man

to

tame the chaos

on every

side, whilst

he

lives, to scatter

the seeds of science and of song,

that climate, corn, animals,

men, may be milder,

benefit

and the germs

plied.

of love

and

may be

multi-

PLATO; OR, THE PHILOSOPHER.

11.

PLATO; OK, THE PHILOSOPHER.

Among
he
said, "

secular books, Plato only

to the
;

is

entitled to

Omar's fanatical compliment

Koran, when

Burn the

libraries

for their value is in

this book."

These sentences contain the culture

these are the corner-stone of schools

of nations

these are the fomitain-head of literatures.

cipline
it

dis-

is

in logic, aritlunetic, taste, symmetry,

poetry, language, rhetoric, ontology, morals or practical

wisdom.

There was never such range of spec-

ulation.

Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought. Great havoc makes he among our originalities. We
all these

have reached the mountain from which

drift boulders

were detached.

The Bible

of the

learned for twenty-two hundred years, every brisk

young man who says

in succession fine things to

each reluctant generation,

Boethius,

Rabelais,

Erasmus, Bruno, Locke, Rousseau,

ridge,

Alfieri,

Cole-

is

some reader of Plato, translating into

the vernacular, wittily, his good things.

Even

the

42

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
of grander proportion suffer

men

some deduction

from the misfortune

nicus,

(shall I say?) of
St.

coming

after

this exhausting generalizer.

Augustine, Coper-

Newton, Behmen, Swedenborg, Goethe, are

likewise his debtors

it is

and must say

after him.

For
all

fair to credit the broadest generalizer

with

the particulars deducible from his thesis.

Plato

is

philosophy, and philosophy, Plato,

at

once the glory and the shame of mankind, since

neither Saxon nor

idea to his categories.

Eoman have availed to add any No wife, no children had he,

j)os-

and the thinkers

terity

of all civilized nations are his

and are tinged with his mind.

How many
up out
of

great

men Nature

is

incessantly sending

night, to be his

men^

Platonists!
;

the Alexandri-

ans, a constellation of genius

the Elizabethans,

Thomas More, Henry More, John Hales, John Smith, Lord Bacon, Jeremy Taylor, Ralph Cud worth, Sydenham, Thomas Taylor Marnot less; Sir
;

cilius

Ficinus and Picus Mirandola.

:

Calvinism

is

in his Phsedo

Christianity

is

in

it.

MahometanMysti-

ism draws
morals, the

all its

philosophy, in. its hand-book of

Akhlak - y - Jalaly, from him.

all its texts.
is

cism finds in Plato

This citizen of a
patriot.
!

town in Greece man,

no villager nor
says,
'
!

An

Englishman reads and

'

how Teutonic man and how Greek

' !

how English
Italian,

an

'

a Ger-

'

how Ro-

'

As

they say that Helen

PLATO;
of

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.

43

Argos had

tliat

universal beauty that every body

felt related to her, so

Plato seems to a reader in

New England

an American genius.
all sectional lines.

His broad

humanity transcends

This range of Plato instructs us what to think of

the vexed question concerning his reputed works,

what are
lar that

genuine, what sjDurious.

It is singu-

wherever we find a

man

higher by a whole
it is

head than any of his contemporaries,

sure to

come

into doubt wdiat are his real works.

Thus

Homer,

Plato, Rafiaelle,

Shakspeare.

For these

men

magnetise their contemporaries, so that their

companions can do for them what they can never do

for themselves
;

and the great man does thus

live in

several bodies,

and

write, or paint or act,

it is

by many
and what
his

hands

and

after

some time

not easy to say

what
is

is

the authentic

work

of the master

only of his school.

Plato, too, like every great

man, consumed

own

times.

What

is

a great

man

but one of great

sci-

affinities,

who

takes up into himself all arts,

ences, all knowables, as his food?

He

can spare

nothing

he can dispose of every thing.

is

What

is

not good for virtue,

his

the

Hence contemporaries tax him with plagiarism. But inventor only knows how to borrow; and sogood for knowledge.
innumerable laborers
to this architect,

ciety is glad to forget the

who ministered

and reserves

all

44
its

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
gratitude for him.
it

"When we are praising

it so.

Plato,

seems we are praising quotations from

Solon and Sophron and Philolaus. Be

Every
and

book
every

is

a quotation ; and every house

is

a quotation
;

out of

all forests

and mines and stone quarries

man

is

a quotation from

all his ancestors. all

And

this

grasping inventor puts

nations under

contribution.

Plato absorbed the learning of his times,

lolaus, Timseus, Heraclitus,

Phiall

Parmenides, and what

else; then his master, Socrates;

self still

and finding him-

capable of a larger synthesis,

since,

example then or
to gain

he

beyond

travelled into Italy,

what Pj^thagoras had for him; then into

still

Egypt, and perhaps

farther East, to import the

other element, which Europe wanted, into the Euro-

pean mind.

This breadth entitles him to stand as

the representative of philosophy.

He

says, in the

Republic, " Such a genius as philosophers must of

necessity have,
to
is

wont but seldom

its

in all its parts

meet in one man, but

different parts gener-

ally spring

up

in different persons."
well,

Every man
to it

who would do anything

a higher ground. a philosopher.
Plato
is

must come

from

A philosopher must be more than

clothed with the powers of
gift of

a poet, stands upon the highest place of the poet,

and (though I doubt he wanted the decisive

lyric expression),

mainly

is

not a poet because he

chose to use the poetic gift to an ulterior purpose.

PLATO;

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.

45

Great geniuses have the shortest biographies.

Their cousins can
tell

you nothing about them.

They
and

lived in their writings,

and

so their house
If

street life

was

trivial

and commonplace.

you would know their

them.
If he

tastes

and complexions, the

most admiring of their readers most resembles

Plato especially has no external biography.

had

lover, wife, or children,

we hear nothing

of them.

He ground them
its

all into paint.

As a

good chimney burns

smoke, so a philosopher

converts the value of all his fortunes into his intellectual performances.

He was
his times

born 427, A. C, about the time of the

;

death of Pericles

was of patrician connection

and
is

in

and

city,

said to have

had an early

inclination

for

war, but, in his twentieth year,

meeting with Socrates, was easily dissuaded from

this pursuit

and remained for ten years

his scholar,

until

the

death of Socrates.

He

then went to

Megara, accepted the invitations of Dion and of

Dionysius to the court of Sicily, and went thither
three times, though very capriciously treated.
travelled into Italy
;

He
say

then mto Egypt, where he

stayed a long time

thirteen years.
It

some say
said he

three,

some
whom

is

went

farther, into

Babylonia

tliis is

uncertain.

Returning to Athens,
to those
his

he gave lessons in the

Academy

fame drew thither

its

and

died, as

we have

received

io ^^^ ^ct of writing, at eighty-one years.

46

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
But the biography
of

Plato

is

interior.

We

are to account for the supreme elevation of this

man
it

in the intellectual history of our race,

howand

happens

that in proportion
;

to the culture of
that, as

men

they become his scholars

itself

our Jewish

Bible has implanted

in the table-talk

household

life

of

every

man and woman

in the

European and American

nations, so the writings of

Plato have preoccupied every school of learning,

every lover of thought, every church, every poet,

making

it

impossible to think, on certain levels,

except through him.

He

stands between the truth

and every man's mind, and has almost impressed

language and the primary forms of thought with

Hs name
Here
is

and

seal.

am

struck, in reading him,

style

with the extreme modernness of his

the

and

spirit.

germ

of that

Europe we know
and arms
It has
;

so well,
all

in its long history of arts

its traits,

here are

and
new

already discernible in the

mind

of Plato,

in none before him.

spread itseK

since into a

hundred

histories,

but has added no

is

element.

This perpetual modernness

the

measure of merit in every work of art ; since the

author of
it

was not misled by any thing

shorttraits.

lived or local, but abode

by

real

and abiding

How
solve.

Plato came thus to be Europe, and philosois

phy, and almost literature,

the problem for us to

; !

PLATO;

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
to honor, at

47

This could not have happened without a sound,

sincere

and catholic man, able

ideal, or

the

same time, the

tion, as of

laws of the mind, and fate,

or the order of nature.

The
is

first

period of a na-

an individual,

the period of uncon-

scious strength.

Children cry, scream and stamp

with fury, unable to express their desires.

soon as they can speak and
the reason of
it,

As
life,

tell

their

want and

they become gentle.

In adult

whilst the perceptions are obtuse,

talk vehemently

men and women

blimder and
desperation
as,

and

superlatively,
full of

quarrel

their

manners are
of oaths.

their speech
ture, things

is full

As

soon

with cul-

have cleared up a little, and they see them no longer in lumps and masses but accurately
distributed, they desist

from that weak vehemence

in detail.
If the

and explain

their

meaning

tongue

had not been framed

still

for articulation,
forest.

man would

be a beast in the

The same weakness

'

and want, on a higher plane, occurs daily in the

education of ardent young

men and women.

;

Ah

you don't understand

weep, write verses

me

I have never

met with
fault

any one who comprehends

me

'
:

and they sigh and

alone,

and walk
their

of

power to express

precise

meaning.

In a

month or two, through the favor of their good genius, they meet some one so related as to assist their
volcanic estate,

and, good communication being

48

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
citi-

once established, they are thenceforward good

zens.

It is ever thus.

The

progress
force.

is

to accu-

racy, to skill, to truth,

from blind

There
tion,

is

a moment in the history of every natliis

when, ]3roceeding out of

brute youth, the

perceptive powers reach their ripeness and have

not yet become microscopic

so that

man,

at that

instant, extends across the entire scale, and, with

his

feet

still

j)lanted

on the immense forces of

night, converses

by

his eyes

and brain with

the

solar

and

stellar creation.

That

is

moment

of adult

health, the culmination of power.

Such

is

the history of Europe, in all points

and

such in philosophy.

Its early records, almost per-

ished, are of the immigrations

from Asia, bringing

;

with them the dreams of barbarians

of crude notions of morals

a confusion

and

of natural philos-

ophy, gradually subsiding through the partial insight of single teachers.

Before Pericles came the Seven Wise Masters,

and we have the beginnings of geometry, metaphysics and ethics

:

then the partialists,

deduccomes

ing the origin of things from flux or water, or from

air,

or from

fire,

or from mind.

All mix with

these causes mythologic pictures.

Plato, the distributor,

At

last

who needs no
;

barbaric paint,

or tattoo, or whooping

for he can define.

He
he
is

leaves with Asia the vast

and

superlative

PLATO:
the
arrival

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
and
intelligence.

49
"

of accuracy

He

shall be as a

god

to

me, who can rightly divide

and

define."
is

This defining

philosophy.

Philosophy

is

the

account which the

human mind
;

gives to itself of

the constitution of the world.

lie
1.

Two

cardinal facts

forever at the base

the one, and the two.

2.

Unity, or Identity

and,

Variety.

We unite

all

things by perceiving the law which pervades

;

them
act,

by perceiving the

superficial differences

the profound

resemblances.

and But every mental

Oneness and

this very perception of identity or oneness,

recognizes the difference of things.

otherness.

It is impossible to speak or to think

without embracing both.

The mind
effects
;

is

urged to ask for one cause of

;

many

then for the cause of that

and again the

:

cause, diving stiU into the profound

seK-assured
sufficient

that
one,

it

shall arrive at

a one
is

an absolute and

that shall be aU.

" In the midst of

the sun
truth,

the light, in the midst of the light is

in the midst of truth
is

and

the imperishable

being," say the Vedas.

All philosophy, of East

and West, has the same centripetence.

an opposite from cause
VOL. IV.

Urged by

necessity, the
is

mind

retm-ns from the

one to that which

not one, but other or

;

many

to effect

and affirms the necessary

existence of variety, the self-existence of both, as

4

50
each
is

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
involved
in
it

the
is

other.

These

strictly-

blended elements

the problem of thought to

separate and to reconcile.

tually contradictory

Their existence
;

is

muso

and exclusive
not.

and each

fast slides into the other that

what

is

one,

and what

it is

we can never say The Proteus is as

nimble in the highest as in the lowest grounds;

when we contemplate
as in the surfaces

the one, the true, the good,

of matter.

and extremities

In

all nations there are

minds which

incline to

dwell in the conception of the fundamental Unity.

The
all

raptures of prayer and ecstasy of devotion lose

being in one Being.

in

This tendency finds

religious

its

highest expression

the

writings

of

the East, and chiefly in the Indian Scriptures, in the Yedas, the Bhagavat Geeta, and the Yishnu

Purana.
this idea,

Those writings contain

little

else

than

and they
it.

rise to

pure and sublime strains

friend and foe are of one

in celebrating

The Same,
stuff
;

the

Same

the ploughman, the plough and the furrow

;

are of one stuff

and the

stuff is

such and so

much
" You

that the variations of form are unimportant.

are fit" (says the supreme Krishna to a sage) "to

apprehend that you are not

distinct

from me.

That
con-

which I am, thou

with
its

art,

and that

also is this world,

gods and heroes and mankind.

Men

template distinctions, because they are stupefied

PLATO;
witli igTiorance."

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
The words
is

51
consti-

"

and mine

tute ignorance.
shall

What

the great end of

It is soul,

all,

you

now leam from me.

one

in all

bodies,

pervading, uniform, perfect, preeminent

over nature, exempt from birth, growth and decay,

omnipresent,
dent,

made up

of true knowledge, indepen-

unconnected

with unrealities, with name, time past, present and to

that this
sj)irit,

species

and the

rest, in

come.

The knowledge
is

which

is

essentially one, is in one's

bodies,

the

wisdom

of one

own and in all other who knows the unity

through
distinguished as the

of things.

As one

diffusive air, passing

is

the perforations of a flute,

notes of a scale, so the nature of the Great Spirit

is

single,

though

its

forms be manifold, arising

acts.

from the consequences of

destroyed, there
is

When

the differ-

ence of the investing form, as that of god or the

rest, is
is

no distinction."

whole world
is

but a manifestation of

The Vishnu, who

same

"

identical with all things,

and

is

to be regarded

by the wise as not

as themselves.

differing from, but as the

I neither

am
;

going nor coming

;

nor

is
;

my

dwelling in any one place

nor art thou,

I, I."

thou

nor are others, others

said,
;

nor

am

As

if

he had

'

All

is

for the soul,

and the soul

is

Vishnu
ings
;

and animals and

light is

stars are transient paint;

and
;

whitewash
is

and durations are

;

deceptive

and form

imprisonment

and heaven

52
itself

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
a decoy.'

That

wliicli

the soul seeks

is

reso-

lution into being above form, out of Tartarus

and

out of heaven, liberation from nature.

If speculation tends thus to a terrific unity, in

which

all

things are absorbed, action tends directly

diversity.

backwards to

The
;

first

is
is

the course the power

or gravitation of
of nature. absorbs,
creates.

mind
is

the second

Nature

the manifold.

The unity
inter-

and melts or reduces.

things,
is

Nature opens and

These two principles reappear and

all

penetrate

all
;

thought; the one, the

:

many.
motion

One
:

being

the other, intellect

:

one

is

necessity ; the other, freedom

one,
;

one, rest

the other,
:

power

the other, distribution

:

one,
;

strength

the other, pleasure

:

one, consciousness
;

the other, definition

one, earnestness
session
;
;

one, genius

the other, talent

:

the other, knowledge

:

one, pos-

the other, trade

one, king
;

one, caste

the other,
:

culture

the other, democracy

and,

if

we

dare carry these generalizations a step higher,

last

and name the

say, that the
ization,
is

tendency of both, we might

is

end of the one

science
;

escape from organof the other

pure

and the end

the highest instrumentality, or use of means, or

executive deity.

Each student
the mind.

adheres,

by temperament and by by
in-

habit, to the first or to the second of these gods of

By

religion,

he tends to unity

PLATO;
tellect,

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
the many.

53

or

by the

senses, to

too

rapid unification, and an excessive

appliance to

parts and particulars, are the twin dangers o speculation.

To

this partiality the history of nations corre-

sponded.

The country

of unity, of

immovable

insti-

tutions, the seat of a philosophy delighting in abstractions, of

men

faithful in doctrine

and in prac-

tice to the idea of

a deaf, unimplorable, immense

realizes this faith in the social

fate, is

Asia ; and

it

institution of caste.

On

the other side, the genius

:

of

Europe
;

is

active

and creative

it resists
;

caste
it

by
a

culture

its

philosophy was a discipline

inventions, trade, freedom.

is

land of

arts,

If the

East loved
ries.

infinity, the

West

delighted in bounda-

European
adaptive

civility is the

triumph of

talent, the

extension of system, the sharpened understanding,

skill,

delight in forms, delight in manifesPericles, Athens,

tation, in comprehensible results.

Greece, had been working in

tliis

element with the

joy of genius not yet chilled by any foresight of

the detriment of an excess.

They saw before them

;

no

sinister political

economy no ominous Malthus

;

no Paris or London
classes,

no

pitiless

subdivision

of

the doom of the pin-makers, the doom of

colliers;

the weavers, of dressers, of stockingers, of carders,

of
spinners, of

no Ireland; no Indian

64
caste,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
superinduced by the efforts of Europe to
it off.

throw

The understanding was

Art was
in
its

in its health
novelty.

and prime. and

splendid
if it

They cut the Pentelican marble as

their erfect

were snow,

works in architecture and sculp-

ture see|hed things of course, not

more

difficult

than the completion of a

yards, or
in course,

new

ship at the

Medford

new

mills at Lowell.

These things are

and may be taken for granted.

The Ro-

man

legion, Byzantine legislation, English trade,

the saloons of Versailles, the caf^s of Paris, the

steam-mill, steamboat, steam-coach,

may

all

be seen

in perspective;

the town-meeting, the ballot-box,

the newspaper and cheap press.

Meantime, Plato, in Egypt and in Eastern

things are absorbed.
;

pil-

grimages, imbibed the idea of one Deity, in which

all

The unity

of Asia

and

the detail of Europe

soul

the infinitude of the Asiatic

and the

defining, result-loving,

machine-mak-

ing, surface-seeking, opera-going Europe,

Plato

came

to join, and,

by

contact, to enhance the en-

ergy of each.

The

excellence of

Europe and Asia

he substructs

are in his brain.

Metaphysics and natural philos;

ophy expressed the genius of Europe

the religion of Asia, as the base.

In

short,

a balanced soul was born, perceptive of

It is as easy to

the two elements.

be great as to
at once b

be small.

The reason why we do not

PLATO,- OR,
lieve in

THE PHILOSOPHER.
is

55

admirable souls

because they are not in

life,

our experience.
to be incredible
;

In actual

they are so rare as

is

but primarily there

not only no

presumption against them, but the strongest pre-

sumption

in

favor of

their

appearance.

But

whether voices were heard in the sky, or not whether his mother or his father dreamed that the
infant man-child was the son of Apollo
;

whether
;

swarm of bees settled on his lips, or not a man who could see two sides of a thing was born. The wonderful synthesis so familiar in nature the
a
;

upper and the under side of the medal of Jove

the union
of impossibilities,
;

which reappears in
ideal power,

every object

its

real

and

its

was

now

also transferred entire to the consciousness of

a man.

The balanced
truth,

soul came.

If he loved abstract

he saved himself by propounding the most

all principles,

popular of

the absolute good, which

If he

rules rulers,

and judges the judge.

illustrations

made

transcendental distinctions, he fortified himself by

drawing aU his

from sources disdained

;

by orators and
puj)pies
;

polite conversers

from mares and

;

from pitchers and soup-ladles

the

from cooks

and

criers;

shops of potters, horse-doctors,

butchers and fishmongers.

himself a partiality, but
poles of
is

He

cannot forgive in

resolved that the two

thought shall appear in his statement.

56

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
liis

His argument and

spherical.

sentence are self-poised and

poles

The two

appear; yes, and be-

come two hands,

own.

to grasp

and appropriate

their

Every great

artist

has been such by synthesis.

;

Our

strength

is

transitional, alternating

or, shall

I say, a thread of two strands.

The

sea-shore, sea

seen from shore, shore seen from sea; the taste of

two metals in contact

and our enlarged powers

;

at

the approach and at the departure of a friend

the

experience of

poetic

creativeness,

which

is

not

found in staying at home, nor yet in travelling, but

in transitions

from one

to the other,

which must

therefore be adroitly

managed

to present as
;

transitional surface as possible

this

much command of
the

two elements must explain the power and

charm

of

Plato.

Art expresses the one or the

Thought seeks
it

same by the
unity in unity
is,

different.
;

to

know
;

poetry to show

by

variety

that

always by an object or symbol.

aether

Plato keeps the

two vases, one of

side,

and one

of pigment, at his

and invariably uses both.

Things added to

things, as statistics, civil history, are inventories.

Things used as language are inexhaustibly

tive.

attrac-

Plato turns incessantly the obverse and the

reverse of the

medal of Jove.
:

To take an example

The

physical philoso-

phers had sketched each his theory of the world;

PLATO;

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
fire,

57
;

the theory of atoms, of

ories

of flux, of spirit

the-

mechanical and

chemical in their genius.

Plato, a master of mathematics, studious of all nat-

ural laws and causes, feels these, as second causes,

to be

no theories of the world but bare inventories

lists.

and

To

the study of nature he therefore

prefixes the

dogma,

" Let
He

us declare the cause

which led the Supreme Ordainer to produce and

compose the universe.

is

was good

good has no kind of envy.

all

he wished that

things

and he who Exempt from envy, should be as much as

;

possible like himself.

Whosoever, taught by wise

prime cause of the
will

men,

shall

admit

this as the

origin

and foundation of the world,

be in the

truth."

" All things are for the sake of the good,

the cause of every thing beautiful."

and

it is

This

dogma animates and impersonates his philosophy. The synthesis which makes the character of his mind appears in all his talents. Where there is great compass of wit, we usually find excellencies
that combine easily in the living man, but in description appear incompatible.
is
is

The mind

of Plato

not to be exhibited by a Chinese catalogue, but

to be

apprehended by an original mind in the

its

exercise of

original power.
is

In him the

freest

abandonment
geometer.

united with the precision of a

His daring imagination gives him the

;

more

solid grasp of facts

as the birds of highest

58
flight

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
have the strongest alar bones.
his intrinsic elegance,
it

His patrician

polish,

edged by an irony

so subtle that

stings

and paralyzes, adorn the

According

soundest health and strength of frame.

to the old sentence, " If Jove should descend to

the earth, he would speak in the style of Plato."

With
aim

this

palatial air there

is,

for the direct

of several of his

works and running through

a certain earnestness, which

the tenor of

them

all,

mounts, in the Republic and in the Phaedo, to

piety.

He

has been charged with feigning sickness

at the time of the death of Socrates.

But the anecattest

dotes that have

his

come down from the times

manly interference before the people

in his

master's behalf, since even the savage cry of the

assembly to Plato

is

preserved; and the indigna^

tion towards popular government, in

pieces, exj)resses

many

of his

a personal exasperation.

He

has

probitj^,

a native reverence for justice and honor,

and a humanity which makes him tender for the

superstitions of the people.
lieves that poetry,

Add

to this,

he be-

prophecy and the high insight

of

are from a

wisdom

which man

is

not master

that the gods never philosophize, but by a celestial

mania these miracles are accomplished. Horsed on these winged steeds, he sweeps the dim regions,
visits

worlds which flesh cannot enter

he saw the

souls in pain, he hears the

doom

of the judge, he

"

PLATO;
beholds
tlie

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.

59

penal metempsycliosis, the Fates, with

the rock and shears, and hears the intoxicatuig

hum

of their spindle.
his circumspection never forsook him.

But
of

One

would say he had read the inscription on the gates

Busyrane,
gate,

"Be

" Be

bold

"

and on the second

gate,

bold, be bold,

and evermore be bold;

is like

and then again had paused well at the third

"Be

not too bold."

His strength

the

momentum
lent is his

of a falling planet,
its

and

his discretion

the return of

due and perfect curve,

of

so excelhis skill
is

Greek love

boundary and

in definition.

In reading logarithms one

not

more secure than

in following Plato in his flights.

Nothing can be colder than his head, when the

lightnings of his imagination are playing in the
sky.

He
it

has finished

his

thinking

before he
in the sur-

brings

to the reader,

and he abounds

prises of a literary master.

He

has that opulence

which furnishes,
he needs.

at every turn, the precise

weapon

As

the rich

man

wears no more garsits

ments, drives no more horses,

in

no more
for the
is

chambers than the poor,

but

has that one dress,

is
fit

or equipage, or instrument, which

;

hour and the need so Plato, in his plenty,

restricted,

never

but has the

all

fit

word.

There

is

indeed

no weapon in

the armory of wit which he did

not possess and use,

epic, analysis,

mania,

intui-

60

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
and
irony,

tion, music, satire

down

to the custom-

ary and polite.

His

illustrations are poetry

and

his

jests illustrations.

Socrates' profession of obstetric

;

art

is

good philosophy

and

his finding that

word

" cookery," and " adulatory art," for rhetoric, in

the

Gorgias, does us a substantial service

orator can measure in effect

still.

No

with him who can

give good nicknames.

What

moderation and understatement and check!

ing his thunder in mid volley

He

has good-na-

turedly furnished the courtier and citizen

that can be said against the schools.
''

mth

all

For

philos-

ophy
than
well

is

an elegant thing,
it
;

if

any one modestly medit

dles with
is

but

if
it

he

is

conversant with

more
could
the

becoming,
to

corrupts the man."

He

afford

be generous,

he,

who from

sunlike centrality and reach of his vision, had a

faith without cloud.
his speech
:

Such

as his perception,

was

he plays with the doubt and makes the

most of

it

he paints and quibbles

and by and by

comes a sentence that moves the sea and land.

The admirable
bursts of light.

earnest comes not only at intervals,

in the perfect yes

and no

of

the dialogue, but in

"I, therefore, Callicles,

am

per-

suaded by these accounts, and consider how I

exhibit
dition.

may

my

soul before the judge in a healthy con-

Wherefore, disregarding the honors that

truth, I shall

most men value, and looking to the

PLATO;

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
live as virtuously as I

61
can

endeavor in reality to

and when I
men,
to the

die, to die so.

And

I invite all other

;

utmost of
this

my

power

and you too I

I
affirm,

In turn invite to

contest,

which,

surpasses all contests here."

He is

a great average

man
him

one who, to the best

thinking, adds a proportion and equality in his faculties, so that

men

see in

their

own dreams and

to pass for
is

glimpses

made

available

and made

what

they are.

great common-sense

his warrant

and

qualification to be the world's interpreter.

all

He
class
this

has reason, as

the philosophic

and poetic

have

but he has also what they have not,

strong solving sense to reconcile his poetry with the

appearances of the world, and build a bridge from

the streets of cities to the Atlantis.
this

He

omits never

graduation,

but slopes his thought, however

picturesque the precipice on one side, to an access

from the
catches us

plain.

He

never writes in ecstacy, or

up

into poetic raptures.

Plato apprehended the cardinal facts.

prostrate himself on the earth

He

could

and cover

his eyes

whilst he adored that which cannot be numbered,

or gauged, or known, or

named

that of which

every thing

can be affirmed

and denied: that

"which

is

entity

and

nonentity."

He

called

it

super-essential.

He

even stood ready, as in the

62

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
it

Parmenides, to demonstrate that

this

was

so,

that
No
race,

Being exceeded the limits of

intellect.

man

ever more fully acknowledged the Ineffable.

his

Having paid

homage, as for the human

\o the Illimitable, he then stood erect,

and

for the

human
able
!

race affirmed,

'And

yet things are know-

'

that

is,

the Asia in his

heartily honored,

the

ocean of

mind was first love and power,

the

before form, before

will,
;

before knowledge,

Same, the Good, the One

and now, refreshed and and he

cries,

empowered by

this

worship, the instinct of Eu;

'

rope, namely, culture, returns

Yet

things are knowable

'

They

are knowable, be-

cause being from one, things correspond.

is

There

a scale

and the correspondence of heaven to

earth, of matter to mind, of the part to the whole,

is

our guide.

As

there

is

a science of stars,

called astronomy;

a science of quantities, called

qualities, called

mathematics; a science of
istry;
it

chemcall

so

there

is

a science of sciences,
is

Dialectic,

which

the Intellect discriminatIt rests

ing the false and the true.

on the obser-

vation of identity and diversity;

to unite to
it.

for to judge is

an object the notion which belongs to

even the best,

astronomy, are

The

sciences,

mathematics and
who
seize

like sportsmen,

what-

ever prey offers, even without being able to

make

any use of

it.

Dialectic must

teach the use of

PLATO', OR,
them.
" This
is

THE PHILOSOPHER.
own

63

of that

rank that no intellectual

its

man

will enter

on any study for

sake, but

only with a view to advance himself in that one

sole science

which embraces

all."

"

The

essence or peculiarity of

man

is

to

com-

prehend a whole; or that which in the diversity

of sensations can be comprised under a rational
unity."

"The

soul

which has never perceived

the truth, cannot pass into the

human form."

announce to men the

Intellect.

I announce the

good of being interpenetrated by the mind that

made nature
understand

this

benefit,
it

namely, that

it

can

nature, which

made and maketh.

is

Nature
giver
is

is

good, but intellect

better

as the law-

before the law-receiver.

I give you joy,

sons of

men

that truth

is

altogether whole-

some; that we have

hope to search out what

might be the very seK of everything.

ery of

The

mis-

man

is to

be baulked of the sight of essence

and

to be stuffed
is

with conjectures
;

but the suis

preme good
reality
this
;

reality

the

supreme beauty
courage

and

all virtue

and
:

all felicity

depend on
is

science of

the real
;

for

nothing

else

than knowledge

the fairest fortune that can

befall

man
is

is

to be guided

by

his

daemon
is

to that

which
of

truly his own.

This also

justice,

the essence

to attend
is

every one his

own

nay,

the notion of virtue

not to be arrived at except

64

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
tlie

througli direct contemplation of

divine essence.

Courage then

for " the persuasion that

we must
render

search that which

us,

we do not know,
better, braver

will

beyond comparison,
than

and more
to

industrious

discover what

if we thought it im]30ssible we do not know, and useless

to

search for

it."

He
his

secures a position not to be

commanded, by
with real being.

passion

for reality; valuing

philosophy only as

it is

the pleasure of conversing

Thus,
ture.

full of the genius of

Europe, he

said,

Cul-

He saw the

institutions of Sparta

and recogsince,

nized,

more genially one would say than any

the hope of education.

He

delighted in every ac-

complishment, in every graceful and useful and

truthful performance
of
;

above

all in

the splendors

genius

and
life,

intellectual

achievement.

" The
is,

whole of

Socrates," said Glauco, "

with

the wise, the measure of hearing such discourses as

these."
ent,

What
!

a price he sets on the feats of

tal-

on the powers of Pericles, of

Isocrates, of Par-

menides

themselves

What price He called

above price on the talents

the several faculties, gods,

in his beautiful personation.

What value
;

he gives
to ge-

to the art of gymnastic in education

what

ometry

what

to

music

what to astronomy, whose

!

appeasing and medicinal power he celebrates

In

the Timseus he indicates the highest employment


PLATO;
of the eyes.

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
it

65

"

By

us

is

asserted that

God

in-

vented and bestowed sight on us for this purpose,

that on

surveying the circles of intelligence in

the heavens,

own minds,

we might properly employ those of our which, though disturbed when comstill

pared with the others that are uniform, are

allied to their circulations
;

and that having thus

learned,

and being naturally possessed of a correct

of divinity, set right our

reasoning faculty, we might, by imitating the uni-

form revolutions
"

own wan-

derings and blunders."

And

in the Republic,

By

each of these disciplines a certain organ of

is

the soul

both purified and reanimated which

;

is

blinded and buried by studies of another kind

an

organ better worth saving than ten thousand eyes,

since truth
is

perceived by this alone."

;

He

said.

Culture

but he

first

admitted

its basis,

and gave immeasurably the first place to advanHis patrician tastes laid stress on tages of nature.
the distinctions of birth.

In the doctrine of the

is

organic character and disposition

caste.

the origin of

" Such as were

fit

to govern, into their com;

position the informing Deity mingled gold

into

the military, silver

iron

and brass

for

husbandmen

and

artificers."

ages, in this

The East confirms itself, in all The Koran is explicit on this faith.
"

point of caste.

Men
6

have their metal, as of gold

and

silver.

Those of you who were the worthy

VOL. IV.

66

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

ones in the state of ignorance, will be the worthy

ones in the state of faith, as soon as you embrace
it."

Plato was not less firm.

"

Of

the five orders

of things, only four can be taught to the generality

of

men."

In the Eepublic he
example of the

insists

on the temfirst.

peraments of the youth, as

first of

the

A happier
is

stress laid

on nature

in the dialogue with the

young Theages, who

Socrates
asso;

wishes to receive lessons from Socrates.

declares that
if

some have grown wise by

ciating with him, no thanks are due to liim

but,

him they grew wise, not because of him he pretends not to know the way of it. "It is adverse to many, nor can those
simply, whilst they were with
;

be benefited by associating with

me whom

the Dae-

me to With many however he does not prevent me from conversing, who yet are not at all
opposes
;

mon

so that

it is

not possible for

live

with these.

benefited

by associating with me.

Such,

The-

ages, is the association with

me

for, if it pleases

the God, you will ciency

:

make

great and rapid profi-

you
it

will not, if

he does not please.

Judge

whether

is

not safer to be instructed by some

one of those who have power over the benefit which

they im23art to men, than by me,
just as it

who

benefit or not,
said, 'I

may happen." As

if

he had

have

no system.
will

I cannot be answerable for you.

You

be what you must.

If there is love between

PLATO;

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
and
your time

67

US, inconceivably delicious

profitable will our

is lost

intercourse be
will only

if

not,

and you

annoy me.
will of

I shall seem to you stupid,

false.

and the reputation I have,

beyond the
or repulsion laid.

Quite above us,

secret affinity

you or me,
All

is this

my

good

is

magnetic, and

I educate, not by lessons, but

business.'

by going about
and he

my

He

said,

Culture
'

he
is

said.

Nature

failed
is

not to add,

There

also the divine.'

it

There

no thought in any mind but

convert
itself into

quicldy tends to

a power and organizes a huge

Plato, lover of limits,

instrumentality of means.

loved the illimitable, saw the enlargement and nobility

which come from truth

as
if

itself

and good

itself,

and attempted
tellect,

on the part of the human

to

in-

once for

all

do

it

adequate homage,

homage fit for the immense soul to receive, and yet homage becoming the intellect to render. He said
then
'

Our
is

faculties

run out into

infinity,

and

re-

turn to us thence.

We can
upon

define but a little

way

but here

a fact which will not be skij)ped, and

is

which

to shut our eyes

;

suicide.

All things
will,
;

are in a scale

and, begin where

we

ascend

and ascend.

All things are symbolical

and what

we
is

call results are beginnings.'

A key to the method

and completeness of Plato

After he has illustrated

his twice bisected line.

68

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

the relation between the absolute good and true

:

and the forms of the intelligible world, he says " Let there be a line cut in two unequal parts. one Cut again each of these two main parts,

representing the visible, the other the intelligible

world,

and
You
;

let these

two new sections represent

one of the sections of
is,

the bright part and the dark part of each of these

worlds.
will have, for

the visible world, images, that

reflections

both shadows and

for the other section, the objects of

is,

these images, that

of art

plants, animals,

and the works

and nature.

Then

divide the intelligible

world in like manner; the one section will be of

opinions and hypotheses, and the other section of
truths."

To

these four sections, the four opera-

tions of the soul correspond,

conjecture,

faith,

understanding, reason.

As

every pool reflects the

re-

image of the sun, so every thought and thing

stores us

an image and creature of the supreme

is

Good.
mount.

The universe

perforated by a million

channels for his activity.

All things mount and

All his thought has this ascension

teaching that beauty
is

in Phsedrus,
all

the

most lovely of
desire
it

things, exciting hilarity

and shedding

and
en-

confidence through the universe wherever

ters,

but

and

it

enters in

some degree into

another, which

all things:
is

that

there

is

as

much

PLATO;

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER,
beauty
as

69
is

more beautiful than

chaos
;

beauty

than

namely, wisdom, which our wonderful organ

it

of sight cannot reach unto, but which, could

seen,

be

would ravish us with

it

its

perfect reality.

He

has the same regard to

lence in works of art.
in the fabrication of

as the

source of excelartificer,

When

an

he says,

any work, looks

to that

which

always subsists according to the same; and, employing a model of this kind, expresses
its

idea and
his pro-

power in

his work,

it

must follow that

dies, it will

duction should be beautiful.

that which
beautiful.
is

But when he beholds

be far from

born and

Thus ever
same
all
spirit,

the Banquet

is

a teaching in the

familiar

now

to all the poetry

and

to

the sermons of the world, that the love of the

is

sexes

initial,

and symbolizes

at a distance the

passion of the soul for that immense lake of beauty

it

exists to seek.

This faith in the Divinity

is

never out of mind, and constitutes the ground of

all

his dogmas.
only.

Body cannot teach wisdom

that
it

sci-

God

In the same mind he constantly affirms

;

that virtue cannot be taught

ence, but an inspiration
",

is

not a

that the greatest goods

are produced to us through mania and are as-

signed to us by a divine

gift.

This leads
has

me

to that central figure

which he
organ

established in

his

Academy

as

the

70

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

through which every considered opinion shall be

announced, and whose biography he has likewise so
labored that the historic facts are lost in the light
of Plato's mind.

Socrates and Plato are the dou-

ble star which the most powerful instruments will

not entirely separate.

Socrates again, in his traits

and genius,
which
Socrates,

is

the best example of that synthesis

Plato's
of

constitutes

extraordinary

power.

man

humble stem, but

;

honest

enough

of the

commonest history

of a personal

homeliness so remarkable as to be a cause of wit

in others
:

the rather
to
;

that his broad good nature

and exquisite

taste for a joke invited the sally,

which was sure

be paid.

The

players person-

ated him on the stage

the potters copied his ugly

face on their stone jugs.

He was

a cool fellow,

adding to his humor a perfect temper and a knowledge of his man, be he who he might

whom

he

talked with, which laid the companion open to certain defeat in

any debate,

and

in debate he im-

moderately delighted.
iously fond of

The young men are prodighim and invite him to their feasts,

whither he goes for conversation.

too
;

He
;

can drink,

has the strongest head in Athens

and

after

leaving the whole party under the table, goes away

as
if

nothing had happened, to begin new dialogues

with

somebody that

is

sober.

In

short,

he was

what our country-people call an old one.

PLATO;

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
citizen-like tastes,
trees,

71

He

affected a

good many

was

monstrously fond of Athens, hated

willingly

never

went beyond the

walls,

knew

the old

characters, valued the bores

and

philistines,

thought

every thing in Athens a

in

little

better than anything

any other

place.

He was

plain as a

Quaker in
and
syca-

habit and speech, affected low phrases, and illustrations

from cocks and

quails, soup-pans

more-spoons, grooms and farriers, and unnameable

offices,

especially
He had
it

if

he talked with any superfine

person.

a Franklin-like wisdom.

Thus
foot to

he showed one who was afraid to go on

Olympia, that
within doors,
reach.
if

was no more than

his daily

walk

continuously extended, would easily

Plain old uncle as he was, with his great ears,

an immense

talker,

the

rumor ran that on one

Boeotia, he

or two occasions, in the

war with

had
re-

shown a determination which had covered the

treat of a troop
;

and there was some story that

he had, in the city govern-

under cover of

folly,

ment, when one day he chanced to hold a seat

there,

evinced a courage in opposing singly the

popular voice, which had well-nigh ruined him.

He

is

very poor
live

but then he
olives
;

is

hardy as a

soldier,

and can
tained

on a few

usually, in the strict-

est sense,

on bread and water, except when enterhis

friends.

by

His necessary expenses

72

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
live as lie

were exceedingly small, and no one could

did.

He

wore no under garment

his

upper gar-

ment was the same for summer and winter, and he went barefooted and it is said that to procure the pleasure, which he loves, of talking at his ease all day with the most elegant and cultivated young men, he will now and then return to his shop and
;

carve statues, good or bad, for

be, it is certain that

sale.

However
and

that

he had grown to delight in

;

nothing else than this conversation

that, un-

der his hypocritical pretence of knowing nothing,

he attacks and brings down

all

all the fine

speakers,

the fine philosophers of Athens, whether natives

or

strangers from Asia

Minor and the

is

islands.

Nobody can
est

refuse to talk with him, he

so hon-

and

really curious to

know

man who was

willingly confuted if

he did not speak the truth,

and who willingly confuted others asserting what

was
false
;

and not
;

less

pleased

when confuted than

evil hap-

when confuting
pened to

for he thought not any

men

of such a

magnitude as
unjust.

false opinion
pitiless

respecting the just

and

dis-

putant, who knows nothing, but the bounds of whose conquering intelligence no man had ever

reached

whose temper was imperturbable

whose

dreadful logic was always leisurely and sjDortive

so careless and ignorant as to disarm the wariest and draw them, in the pleasantest manner, into

PLATO;

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
confusion.
it,

73
always
tell it.

horrible doubts and

But he

knew

the

way
;

out

knew

yet would not

No
by

escape
his

he drives them to terrible choices

Hippiases and

dilemmas, and tosses the

Gorgiases with their grand reputations, as a boy

tosses his balls.

The tyrannous

realist

Meno

has discoursed a thousand times, at length, on virtue, before

peared to him
tell

many companies, and very well, as it apbut at this moment he cannot even
;

what

it is,

this cramp-fish of

a Socrates has

so bewitched him.

This hard-headed humorist, whose strange conceits, drollery

and honJiommie diverted the young

patricians, whilst the

rumor

of

his

sayings and
out, in the
logic,

quibbles gets abroad every day,

sequel, to

turns

have a probity as invincible as his

and

to be either insane, or at least,

under cover

of this play, enthusiastic in his religion.

When
soul,

accused before the judges of subverting the popular creed,

he affirms the immortality of the

;

the future reward and punishment

and refusing
government
the prison.
all

to recant, in a caprice of the popular

was condemned
Socrates

to

die,

and sent

to

entered the prison and

took away

ignominy from the place, which could not be a

prison
jailer
;

whilst

he was there.

Crito bribed

the

but Socrates would not go out by treach" Whatever inconvenience ensue, nothing
is

ery.

74

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
These things I

to be preferred before justice.

hear like pipes and drums, whose sound makes

deaf to every thing you say."
prison, the

me

The fame

of this

fame

of the discourses there

and the

drinking of the hemlock are one of the most precious passages in the history of the world.

The
droll

rare coincidence, in one ugly body, of the

street

and the martyr, the keen

and market
to

debater with the sweetest saint

tory at that time,

known

any

his-

had

forcibly struck the

;

mind

of
fig-

Plato, so capacious of these contrasts

and the
itself in

ure of Socrates by a necessity placed

the

foreground of the scene, as the

fittest

dispenser of

the intellectual treasures he had to communicate.

It

was a rare fortune that

this

this

^sop

of the

mob
The

and

robed scholar should meet, to make each

in
their in

other

immortal
synthesis

mutual

faculty.

strange

the

character of

Socrates

capped the synthesis in the mind of Plato.

More-

over by this means he was able, in the direct way

and without envy

to avail himself of the wit

and

weight of Socrates, to which unquestionably his

own debt was

great

and these derived again their

principal advantage from the perfect art of Plato.

It remains to say that the defect of Plato in

power

is

only that which results inevitably from

his quality.

He

is

intellectual in his

aim

and
into

therefore, in expression, literary.

Mounting

PLATO;

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
tlie

75

heaven, diving into

pit,

expounding the laws

of the state, the passion of love, the remorse of

crime, the hope of the parting soul,

ary,

he

is liter-

and never otherwise.

It is almost the sole de-

duction from the merit of Plato that his writings

have not,

what

is

no doubt incident
work,

to this reg-

nancy of
ity

intellect in his

the

vital author-

which the screams of prophets and the sermons

of unlettered

Arabs and Jews

and

possess.

There

is

an interval
I

to cohesion, contact is necessary.

know

not what can be said in reply to this

criticism but that

we have come
an oak
is

to a fact in the

nature of things

not an orange.

The

qualities of sugar
salt

remain with sugar, and those of

he has not a system.

with

salt.

In the second

place,

The

dearest defenders and disciples are at fault.

He

attempted a theory of the universe, and his theory

is

not complete or self-evident.

this,

One man
;

thinks

he means

and another that

he has said one

it

thing in one place, and the reverse of

place.

in another

He

is

charged with having failed to make

the transition from ideas to matter.

Here

is

the

world, sound as a nut,

piece of chaos
left,

perfect, not the smallest

never a stitch nor an end, not a

;

mark

of haste, or botching, or second thought

but

the theory of the world is a thing of shreds

patches.

and

The

longest

wave

is

quickly lost in the sea.

76

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
known
should

Plato would willingly have a Platonism, a

and accurate expression

be accurate.
the

for the world,

and

it

It shall be the world passed through

mind

of Plato,

nothing

less.

Every atom
shall

shall

have the Platonic tinge; every atom, every

relation or quality

you knew before, you

know
in-

again and find here, but

now ordered

not nature,

but

art.

And you
;

shall feel that

Alexander

deed overran, with men and horses, some countries

of the planet

but countries, and things of which

itself,

countries are made, elements, planet

of planet

laws
this

and

of

men, have passed through

man

as bread into his body,

:

and become no longer

bread, but body

so all this

mammoth

morsel has

become Plato.
world.

He

has clapped copyright on the

This

is

the ambition of individualism.

But
falls
:

the mouthful proves too large.

Boa
foiled.

constrictor

has good will to eat

it,
;

but he

is

He

abroad in the attempt

and

biting, gets strangled

the bitten world holds the biter fast by his

teeth.
lives

own
:

There he perishes:

unconquered nature
it

on and forgets him.

it

So

fares with all

so

must
tions.

fare with Plato.

In view of eternal nabe philosoj)hical exercita-

ture, Plato turns out to

He

argues on this side and on that.

disciple, could

The
never

acutest
tell

German, the lovingest

;

what Platonism was

indeed, admirable texts

can be quoted on both sides of every great ques

tion

from him.

PLATOi
These
tilings

OR,

THE PHILOSOPHER.
are forced to say
if

77

we

we must

consider the effort of Plato or of any philosopher

to dispose of nature,
of.

which

will not

be disposed

No power

of

genius has

ever yet had the

smallest success in explaining existence.

fect

The

per-

enigma remains.
this

But there

is

an injustice in

assuming

ambition for Plato.

Let us not
name.

seem

to treat with flippancy his venerable

Men,
to

in proportion to their intellect, have admitted

his transcendent claims.

The way

to

know him

is

compare him, not with nature, but with other

men.

How many

ages have gone by, and he re!

mains unapproached
wit, like

A chief structure of hiunan

it

Karnac, or the mediaeval cathedrals, or

requires all the breath of
it.

the Etrurian remains,

human
seen

faculty to

know

I think

it is trueliest

when seen with

Here
is

the most respect.

His sense

deepens, his merits multiply, with study.

When
or

we we

say.

a fine collection of fables

when

praise the style, or the

metic,

we speak

as

boys,

common sense, and much of

or arith-

our imis

patient criticism of the dialectic, I suspect,

better.

no

The criticism is like our impatience when we are in a hurry but it is still
;

of miles,

best that

a mile should have seventeen hundred and sixty

yards.
lights

The

great -eyed

Plato

proportioned the
life.

and shades

after the genius of our

PLATO:

NEW
Mr.

READINGS.

The

publication, in

Bolin's " Serial Libra-

ry," of the excellent translations of Plato, whicb

we esteem one

of the chief benefits the cheap press

has yielded, gives us an occasion to take hastily a

few more notes of the elevation and bearings of

this fixed star
nals, of
;

or to add a bulletin, like the jourlatest dates.

Plato at the
science,

Modern
tion,

by the extent

of its generaliza-

has learned to indemnify the student of

man

for the defects of individuals

by tracing growth

and ascent
of lighting

in races

and, by the simple expedient

feeling

of

complacency and hope.

up the vast background, generates a The human

sciences, the easy issue of his brain,

being has the saurian and the plant in his rear.

His

arts

and

look glorious

when

prospectively beheld from the

distant brain of ox, crocodile

as
if

and

fish.

It

seems

nature, in regarding the geologic night behind

her,

when, in

five or six

millenniums, she had turned

out five or six men, as

Homer, Phidias, Menu and

PLATO;

NEW

READINGS.

79
re-

Columbus, was no wise discontented with the

sult.

These samples attested the virtue of the

trilobite

tree.

These were a clear amelioration of

saurus,

and

and a good

basis for further proceeding.

With
is

this artist, time

insensible to

and space are cheap, and she what you say of tedious prepara-

tion.

She waited tranquilly the flowing periods of

paleontology, for the hour to be struck

when man
then before

should arrive.

Then

periods must pass before the

;

motion of the earth can be suspected

the

map

of the instincts

and the cultivable powers and

beautiful,

can be drawn.
of individual

But
is

as of races, so the succession

men

fatal

and Plato

has the fortune in the history of mankind to mark

an epoch.
Plato's fame does not stand on a syllogism, or on any masterpieces of the Socratic reasoning, or on any thesis, as for example the immortality of

the soul.

He

is

more than an

expert, or a school-

man, or a geometer, or the prophet of a peculiar

message.
tellect,

He

represents the privilege of

the in-

the power, namely, of

carrying up every
so disclosing in

fact to successive platforms

and

every fact a germ of expansion.

are in the
essence of thought.
to

These expansions

The
is

naturalist

would never help us

them by any

discoveries

of the extent of the universe, but

as poor

cataloguing the resolved nebula of Orion, as

when when

80

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
But the Repubto

measuring the angles of an acre.

lic

of Plato,

by these expansions, may be said

so
to

require

and

anticipate

the

astronomy of

Laplace.

The expansions
it

are organic.

The mind

does not create what

perceives,

any more than

say.

the eye creates the rose.

In ascribing to Plato the

merit of announcing them,

we only

Here was

a more complete man, who could apply to nature

the whole scale of the senses, the understanding

and the reason.

These expansions or extensions where the

consist in continuing the spiritual sight

horizon falls on our natural vision, and by this

second

sight

discovering the long lines of law

direction.

which shoot in every

Everywhere he
Therefore every

stands on a path which has no end, but runs continuously round the universe.

word becomes an exponent of nature.

senses.

Whatever

he looks upon discloses a second sense, and ulterior

His perception of the generation of condeath out of

life

traries, of

and

liffe

out of death,

that law

by which,

in nature, decomposition is re-

composition, and putrefaction and cholera are only

signals of a
little

new

creation

his discernment of the

in

the large and

the large in the small

studying the state in the citizen and the citizen

in the state
;

and leaving

it

doubtful whether he

exhibited the Republic as an allegory on the education of the private soul

;

his beautiful definitions

PLATO;

NEW

READINGS.

81

of ideas, of time, of form, of figure, of the line,

sometimes

liypotlietically given, as his defining of

virtue, courage, justice,

temperance

his

love of
;

the apologue, and his apologues themselves

the

cave of Trophonius
ioteer

the ring of
;

Gyges

the char-

and two horses

;

the golden, silver, brass

;

and

iron temperaments
visions of

Theuth and Thamus

Fates,

and the
which

Hades and the

fables

have imprinted themselves in the human memory

like the signs of the zodiac
;

his solif orm eye

;

and
his

his boniform soul ; his doctrine of assimilation

doctrine of reminiscence

his clear vision of the

laws of return, or reaction, which secure instant

justice throughout the

universe, instanced every-

where, but speciall}^ in the doctrine, " what comes

from God

to us, returns

from us

to

God," and in

Socrates' belief that the laws below are sisters of

the laws above.

More
sions.

striking examples are his moral conclu-

Plato affirms the coincidence of science

;

and virtue
virtue,

for vice can never

know
itself

itself

and
vice.

but virtue

knows both
was

and

The eye
it

attested that justice

;

best, as long as
it is

was

profitable
;

Plato affirms that

profitable

throughout

that the profit

is intrinsic,

though the
;

just conceal his justice

it is

from gods and men

it

that
that

better to suffer injustice than to do

the sinner ought to covet punishment; that the

VOL. IV.
6

82
lie

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
was more hurtful than homicide
lie,
;
;

and that

ignorance, or the involuntary

was more calamithat the soul

is

tous than involuntary homicide

unwillingly deprived of true opinions, and that no

man

sins willingly

that the order or proceeding

to the body, and,

of nature

was from the mind

though a sound body cannot restore an unsound

mind, yet a good soul can, by
its virtue,

render the

body the

best possible.

The

intelligent

have a

right over the ignorant, namely, the right of in-

structing them.
of

tune

is

to

The right punishment of one out make him play in tune the fine
;

which the good, refusing to govern, ought

is,

to pay,

to be governed

by a worse man
and
silver,
is

that his guards

in-

shall not handle gold

but shall be

structed that there

gold and silver in their souls,

willing to give

which

will

make men

them every

thing which they need.

This second sight explains the stress laid on

He saw that the globe of earth was more not lawful and precise than was the supergeometry.
sensible;
there, as

that a celestial geometry was

in

place

a logic of lines and angles here below;

;

that the world was throughout mathematical

the

proportions are constant of oxygen, azote and lime

there
is

just so

much water and

slate

and magnesia

not less are the proportions constant of the mora]

elements.

PLATO;

NEW

READINGS.

83
false-

This eldest Goethe, hating varnish and

hood, delighted in revealing the real at the base

of the accidental
tinuity
lation
;

in discovering connection, coninsu-

and representation everywhere, hating

and appears

like the

god of wealth among

Ethical science

the cabins of vagabonds, opening power and capa^

bility in

everything he touches.

was new and vacant when Plato could write thus

"Of

all

whose arguments are

left to

the

men
re-

of the present time, no one has ever yet

injustice, or praised justice, otherwise

condemned
than as

spects the repute, honors

and emoluments arising

therefrom
self,

while, as respects either of

its

them

in

it-

and subsisting by
possessor,

own power

in the soul

of the

and concealed both from gods

sufficiently investigated,

and men, no one has yet

that injustice

either in poetry or prose writings,

is

how, namely,
the greatest

the greatest of all the evils that

it,

the

soul

has within

and

justice

good."

His

definition

of

ideas,

as

what

is

simple,

permanent, uniform and

self-existent, forever dis-

criminating them from the notions of the understanding, marks

an era in the world.

He was
spirit,
is

born to behold the self-evolving power of

endless, generator of

new ends
the

a power which

the key at once to

\iescence of things.

centrality
is

and the eva-

Plato

so centred that he

84

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
all his

can well spare

dogmas.
to

knowledge and ideas reveals

eternity;

Thus the him the

fact of fact of

and

the doctrine

of

reminiscence

he

offers as the

most probable particular explication.

Call that fanciful,

tion

it

matters not: the connecthe

between our knowledge and

is
still

abyss of

being

real,

and the explication must be

not less magnificent.

He
itself,

has indicated every eminent point in spec-

ulation.

He
that

wrote on the scale of

all

the

mind

so

things have symmetry in his

all

tablet.

He

put in

the past, without weariness,

and
that

descended into detail with a courage like

he witnessed

in

nature.

One would

say

that his forerunners had

mapped

out each a farm

geog-

or a district or

an

island, in intellectual
first

raphy, but that Plato

drew the sphere.

:

He

domesticates the soul in nature

man

is

the micro-

cosm.
sent as
is

All the circles of the visible heaven repre-

many

circles in the rational soul.

There

no lawless

particle,

and there

is

nothing casual

in the action of the

things,
too,

human mind.
following

The names
the nature

of

are fatal,

of

things.

All the gods of the Pantheon are, by

their names, significant of a profound sense.

The

gods are the ideas.

tion
;

Pan

is

speech, or manifesta;

Saturn, the contemplative

Jove, the regal

is

goul;

and Mars, passion.

Venus

proportion;


PLATO;

NEW

READINGS.

85

Calliope, the soul of the world; Aglaia, intellectual illustration.

These thoughts, in sparkles of

well-bred, all-knowing

light,
;

had apbut this

peared often to pious and to poetic souls

Greek geometer comes with command, gathers them all up into rank and gradation, the

Euclid of holiness, and marries the Before

all

two parts of nature.

intellectual values of

men, he saw the

the moral sentiment.

He

describes his

own

ideal,

when he

paints, in Ti-

mseus, a god leading things from disorder into

order.

He

kindled a

fire so

truly in the centre

that

we

see the sphere illuminated,

poles,

and can
of

dis

tinguish

equator
:

and

lines

latitude,

every arc and node

a theory so averaged,

so

modulated, that you would say the winds of ages

had swept through

not that
it

this rhythmic structure, and was the brief extempore blotting of

scribe.

one short-lived

Hence
class

it

has happened

that a very well-marked

of souls,

namely
is,

those

who

delight in giving a spiritual, that

an

ethico-intellectual

expression to every truth,

is

by

exhibiting an ulterior end which

to
it,

yet legitimate

are
is

said to Platonize.

Thus, Michael An:

gelo

a Platonist in his sonnets

Shakspeare

is

a Platonist when he writes,

86

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
" Nature
is

made

better by no mean,

But nature makes that mean,"

or,
" He, that can endure

To

follow with allegiance a fallen lord,

his

Does conquer him that did

master conquer,

And

earns a place in the story."

'tis

Hamlet

is

a pure Platonist, and

the magnitude

only of Shakspeare's proper genius that hinders

him from being

this

classed as the most eminent of

school.

Swedenborg, throughout his prose

poem
The

of " Conjugal Love," is a Platonist.

to

His subtlety commended him

men
is

of thought.

secret of his popular success

the moral aim

"Intellect," he
;

which endeared him to mankind.

said, " is

king of heaven and of earth " but in

is

Plato, intellect

always moral.

His writings

have also the sempiternal youth of poetry.

their arguments,

For

most of them, might have been

:

couched in sonnets
the poet, too, he

and poetry has never soared

higher than in the Timgeus and the Phaedrus.

is

As
did
insti-

only contemplative.

He

not, like Pythagoras,

break himself with an

tution.

All his painting in the Republic must be

esteemed mythical, with intent to bring out, sometimes in violent colors, his thought.
institute,

You

cannot

without peril of charlatanism.

his

It

was a high scheme,

the
best

absolute

privilege
ex'

for

(which, to

make emphatic, he


PLATO;

NEW

READINGS.

87

pressed by community of women), as the

premium
shall

which he would
merit

set

on grandeur.
:

There

be exempts of two kinds

first,

those

who by

de-

have put
;

themselves

below protection,

outlaws

and secondly, those who by eminence of

Let such be free of the
city

nature and desert are out of the reach of your

rewards.
the law.

and above
;

We

confide

them

to themselves

let

them do with us
to

as they will.

Let none presume

measure the irregularities of Michael Angelo

village scales.

and Socrates by

In his eighth book of the Eepublic, he throws a

little

mathematical dust in our eyes.

am

sorry

to see him, after such noble superiorities, permit-

ting the

lie to

governors.

Plato plays Providence

people allow them-

little

with the baser

sort, as

selves with their dogs

and

cats.

SWEDENBORG;

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

III.

SWEDENBOEG;

OK,

THE MYSTIC.

Among
dear to

eminent persons, those who are most

are not of the class which the econo:

men

mist calls producers

they have nothing in their

hands; they have not cultivated corn, nor made

bread

they have not led out a colony, nor invented

a loom.

higher

class, in

the

estimation

and

love of this city-building market-going race of

man-

kind, are

the poets,

who, from the intellectual

kingdom, feed the thought and imagination with

ideas

and pictures which

raise

men

out of the

world of corn and money, and console them for the

short-comings of the day and the meanness of labor

and

traffic.

Then,

also, the

philosopher has his

who flatters the intellect of this laborer by engaging him with subtleties which instruct him in new faculties. Others may build cities he is to
value,
;

understand them and keep them in awe. But there

is

a class

who

lead us into another region,

will.
is its

the

world of morals or of
this region of

What

is

singular about

thought

claim.

Wherever the

92

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
in, it

sentiment of right comes

every thing
of
;

takes precedence of

else.

For other things, I make poetry

of

them but the moral sentiment makes poetry

me.
I have sometimes thought that he would render

the

greatest

service

to

modern

criticism,

who

should draw the line of relation that subsists be-

tween Shakspeare and Swedenborg. The human mind stands ever in perplexity, demanding intellect, demanding sanctity, impatient equally of each without the other. The reconciler has not yet appeared. If we tire of the saints, Shakspeare is our city of refuge. Yet the instincts presently
teach that the problem of essence must take pre-

cedence of

all

others

the questions
;

of

Whence

What? and Whither? and

must be

the solution of these

A drama or in a life, and not in a book. poem is a proximate or oblique reply but Moses, Menu, Jesus, work directly on this problem. The
atmosphere of moral sentiment
eur which reduces
toys, yet
all
is

a region of grand-

material magnificence to

opens to every wretch that has reason the

doors of the universe.

it

Almost with a
said, the

fierce haste

lays

its

empire on the man.

In the language
heaven and the

of

the

Koran, "

God
is

earth and all that

between them, think ye that

we

created them in
?

jest,

and that ye

shall not re-

turn to us

"

It is the

kingdom

of the will, and

SWEDENBORG;
by inspiring the
ity,

OR,

THE MYSTIC.
is

93

will,

which

the seat of personal-

seems to convert the universe into a per.

;

son

" The realms of being to no other bow, Not only all are thine, but all are Thou."

AU men

are

commanded by

the saint.

Koran makes a

distinct class of those

who

are

The by
aim

nature good, and whose goodness has an influence

on others, and pronounces

of creation
:

this class to be the

the other classes are admitted to the

feast of being, only as following in the train of

this.

And
Go

this kind,
"

the Persian poet exclaims to a soul of

boldly forth, and feast on being's banquet;

art the called,

Thou

the

rest

admitted with
is

thee.'*

The

privilege

of this

caste

an access to the

secrets

and structure

of nature

by some higher

method than by experience.

what one man
is

In common parlance,

said to learn

by experience, a man
said, without

of extraordinary
rience,
to divine.

sagacity

is

expe-

The Arabians

say, that

Abul
the

Khain, the mystic, and

opher,

Abu
;

Ali Seena, the philosand, on parting,

" and
If

conferred together

philosopher said, " All that he sees, I

know

the mystic said, " All that he knows, I see."

one should ask the reason of this intuition, the

solution

would lead us into that property which

94

REPRESENTATIVE MEN,

Plato denoted as Reminiscence, and which is imphed by the Bramins in the tenet of Transmigration. The soul having been often born, or, as the

Hindoos

say, " travelling

the path

of

existence

through thousands of births," having beheld the

things which are here, those which are in heaven

and those which are beneath, there

der that she

is

nothing of
:

which she has not gained the knowledge

is

no won-

able to recollect, in regard to any

one thing, what formerly she knew.

"For,

all

things in nature being linked and related, and the

soul haAdng heretofore

known

all,

nothing hinders

but that any

cording to the

man who has recalled to mind, or accommon phrase has learned, one
all his

thing only, should of himself recover

ancient
if

knowledge, and find out again

all

the rest,

he

have but courage and faint not in the midst of his

researches.

For inquiry and learning

is

reminis-

cence all."

How much

more,
!

if

he that inquires

be a holy and godlike soul

For by being

as-

similated to the original soul,

by whom and

after

whom
it
:

all

things subsist, the soul of

man

does then

easily flow into all things,

and

all

things flow into

they mix

and he

is

present and sympathetic

with their structure and law.

This path
ror.

is

difficult, secret
it

and beset with

All

ter-

The

ancients called

ecstacy or absence,

a getting out of their bodies to think.

relig-

SWEDENBORG;

OR,

THE MYSTIC.
tlie

95

ious history contains traces of

trance of saints,
;

a
nest,

beatitude, but without

solitary,
it,

any sign of joy

"

ear-

even sad

" the flight," Plotinus

;

called

" of the alone to the alone

Mvt^o-is,

the

closing of the eyes,

whence

our word, Mystic,

The

trances of Socrates, Plotinus, Porphyry, Beh-

men, Bunyan, Fox, Pascal,

will readily

Guy on, Swedenborg,

But what
as readily
disease.

come
is

to mind.

comes

to

mind

the accompaniment of

This beatitude comes in terror, and with shocks to

the

mind

of the receiver.
" It o'erinforms the tenement of clay,"

and drives the man mad

lent bias

or gives a certain vio-

which

taints his judgment.

In the chief

examples of religious illumination somewhat morbid has mingled, in spite of the unquestionable increase of mental power.

Must

the highest good

dis-

drag after
credits
it ?

it

a quaKty which neutralizes and

" Indeed,

it

takes

From
The
Shall
so

our achievements, when performed at height,

pith

and marrow of our attribute."

we much

say, that the economical

mother disburses

earth and

so

much
is

fire,

by weight and
add a pennytheir science

meter, to

make a man, and

will not

weight though a nation

Therefore the

perishing for a leader ?

men

of

God purchased

96

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
folly or pain.

by

If

you

will

have pure carbon,

the brain transpar-

carbuncle, or diamond, to
ent, the

make

trunk and organs shall be so much the

instead of

grosser:

porcelain they are potter's

earth, clay, or

mud.

In modern times no such remarkable example of

this introverted

mind has occurred

as in

Emanuel
This

Swedenborg, born in Stockholm, in 1688.

man, who appeared

ary and
elixir of

to his contemporaries a vision-

moonbeams, no doubt led the most

:

real life of

any man then in the world

and now,
he

when

the royal and ducal Frederics, Christians and

slid into oblivion,

Brunswicks of that day have

begins to spread himself into the minds of thousands.

As happens

in great men, he seemed,

by

the variety and amount of his powers, to be a composition of several persons,

like the giant fruits

which are matured in gardens by the union of four

or five single blossoms.
scale

His frame

is

on a larger

and possesses the advantages

of size.

As

it

is easier to

see the reflection of the great sphere

in large globes, though defaced by some crack or

blemish, than in drops of water, so

calibre,

men

of large

though with some eccentricity or madness,

like Pascal or

Newton, help us more than balanced

be ex-

mediocre minds.

His youth and training could not

traordinary.

fail to

Such a boy could not whistle or

SWEDENBORG;
tains,

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

97

dance, but goes grubbing into mines and

mounfit

prying into chemistry and optics, physiology,

for

mathematics and astronomy, to find images

the measure of his versatile

and capacious brain.

He was
at

a scholar from a child, and was educated

Upsala. At the age of twenty-eight he was made Assessor of the Board of Mines by Charles XII. In 1716, he left home for four years and
visited

the

universities

of

England,

HoUand,

France and Germany.

erikshald,
sloop,

He

performed a notable

feat of engineering in 1718, at the siege of Fred-

by hauling two

galleys, five boats

and a

some fourteen English miles overland, for

In 1721 he journeyed over Eu-

the royal service.

rope to examine mines and smelting works.

He

published in 1716 his Daedalus Hyperboreus, and

from

this time for the

next thirty years was em-

ployed in the composition and publication of his

scientific

works.

With
is

the like force he threw

fifty-

himself into theology.

In 1748, when he was

four years old, what

gan.

called his illumination be-

All his metallurgy and transportation of

ships overland

was absorbed

into this ecstasy.

He

ceased to publish any more scientific books, with-

drew from

his practical labors

and devoted himself

his voluminous

to the writing

and publication of

theological works, which were printed at his

own

expense, or at that of the

Duke

of Brunswick or

98

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

other prince, at Dresden, Leipsic, London, or

Am-

sterdam.

Later, he resigned his office of Assessor

the salary attached to this office continued to be

paid to him during his

life.

His

duties

had

brought him into intimate acquaintance with King

Charles XII., by
honored.

whom

he was much consulted and

The

like favor

was continued

to

his successor.

At

the Diet of 1751, Count

him by Hopat-

ken

saj^s,

the most solid memorials on finance were

from his pen.

tracted a

In Sweden he appears to have

marked regard.
religious

His rare science and

knowledge and

practical skill,

and the added fame of second sight

gifts,

and extraordinary

drew to him queens, nobles,

wont
to pass in his

clergy, shipmasters

and people about the ports through which he was

many

voyages.

The

clergy in-

terfered a little with the importation

and publica-

tion of his religious works, but he seems to have

kept the friendship of

never married.
ness of bearing.

men

in

power.

He was
gentle;

He had

great modesty

and

His habits were simple

;

he lived

on bread, milk and vegetables

situated in a large garden
;

he lived in a house

he went several times

to England, where he does not seem to have at-

tracted any attention whatever from the learned

or the eminent; and died at London,

March

29,
is

1772, of apoplexy, in his eighty-fifth year.

described,

He

when

in

London, as a man of a

quietj

SWEDENBORG;
clerical habit,

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

99

not averse to tea and coffee, and

.

kind to children

He

wore a sword when in

a

full

velvet dress, and,

whenever he walked
There
is

out, carried

a gold-headed cane.
of

common

portrait

him

in antique coat

and wig, but the face has a

to penetrate the science

wandering or vacant

air.

The genius which was

of the age with a far

more

subtle science

to pass

the bounds of space and time, venture into the

spirit-realm,

dim

and attempt

to establish a
its

new

relig-

ion in the world,

began

lessons in quarries

and

forges, in the

smelting-pot and crucible,

in
is

ship-yards

and dissecting-rooms.

No

one

man

perhaps able to judge of the merits of his works on

so

many

subjects.

One

is

glad to learn that his

books on mines and metals are held in the highest

esteem by those who understand these matters.
It

seems that he anticipated

teenth century
;

much

science of the nine-

anticipated, in astronomy, the dis-

covery of the seventh planet,

also of the eighth
;

but, unhappily, not

anticipated the views of

mod-

ern astronomy in regard to the generation of earths

by the sun
try, the

in

magnetism, some important experilater students

;

ments and conclusions of

in chemis-

atomic theory; in anatomy, the discoveries

of Schlichting,

Monro and Wilson

office of the lungs.

and

first

de-

monstrated the

His excellent

English editor magnanimously lays no stress on his

100

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
was too great to care to be
lie

discoveries, since lie

original; spare, of

and we are to judge, by what

can

what remains.
lie lies

A colossal soul,
cal distance to

vast abroad on his times,

fo-

uncomprehended by them, and requires a long

be seen
;

suggests, as Aristotle, Baof

con, Selden,

Humboldt, that a certain vastness

learning, or quasi omnipresence of the

in nature, is possible.

human

soul

His superb speculation, as

arts,

from a tower, over nature and

losing sight of the texture

without ever
of things,

and sequence
man.

almost realizes his

own

picture, in the " Princii^ia,"

of the origmal integrity of

Over and above

is

the merit of his particular discoveries,

tal merit of his self -equality.

the capi-

A drop of water has

the properties of the sea, but cannot exhibit a

storm.

There
;

is

beauty of a concert, as well as of

;

flute

strength of a host, as well as of a hero

and, in Swedenborg, those

who

are best acquainted

with

modem
One
he

books will most admire the merit of

of the missouriums
is

mass.

and mastodons

of

literature,

not to be measured by whole col-

leges of ordinary scholars.

His stalwart presence

of

would

flutter the

gowns

an university.
;

Our

books are false by being fragmentary

tences are honmots,

their sen-

and not parts

of natural dis-

course

childish expressions of surprise or pleasure

in nature; or, worse,

owing a brief notoriety

to

SWEDENBORG;

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

101

their petulance, or aversion

from the order of na-

ture

being some

curiosity or oddity, designedly

not in harmony with nature and purposely framed

to
excite surprise, as jugglers

do by concealing
is

their means.

But Svvedenborg

systematic and
;

respective of the world in every sentence

all

the

means are orderly given

is

his faculties

work with

astronomic punctuality, and this admirable writing

pure from

all

pertness or egotism.

great ideas. yet his

life

Swedenborg was born into an atmosphere of It is hard to say what was his own
:

was dignified by noblest pictures of the

universe.
its

The robust
by
its

Aristotelian method, with

sterile

breadth and adequateness, shaming our

linear logic

and

genial radiation, conversant

skil-

with series and degree, with effects and ends,

ful to discriminate

power from form, essence from

its

accident,
nition,

and opening, by

terminology and

defi-

high roads into nature, had trained a race of

athletic philosophers.

Harvey had shown the

;

cir-

culation of the blood

Gilbert had shown that the

earth was a magnet

Descartes, taught

by

Gilbert's

magnet, with
filled

its

vortex, spiral

and

polarity,

had

Europe with the leading thought of

vortical

motion, as the secret of nature.

Newton, in the

year in which Swedenborg was born, published the

" Principia,"

and established the universal

gravity.

Malpighi, following the high doctrines of Hippo-

102
crates,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
Leucippus and Lucretius, had given em-

phasis to the

dogma

that nature works in leasts,

existit natura."

"

tot a in

minimis

Unrivalled

dissectors,

Swammerdam, Leuwenhoek, Winslow,

Eustachius, Heister, Vesalius, Boerhaave, had left

nothing for scalpel or microscope to reveal in human

or comparative anatomy
rary,
:

Linnaeus, his contempo-

was

affirming, in his beautiful science, that

is

" Nature

always like herself " and,

:

lastly, the

nobility of method, the largest application of principles,

had been exhibited by Leibnitz and Chris;

tian Wolff, in cosmology

tius

whilst

Locke and Gro-

had drawn the moral argument.

What was
It is easy

left for a genius of the largest calibre but to go

over their ground and verify and unite?

to see, in these minds, the origin of Swedenborg's

studies,

and the suggestion

to entertain

of his problems.

He

had a capacity
of thought.

and

vivify these volumes

Yet the proximity

of these geniuses,
all his lead-

one or other of

whom had

introduced

ing ideas, makes Swedenborg another example of

the difficulty, even in a highly fertile genius, of

proving originality, the

first

birth

and annunciation
the
doctrine of

of one of the laws of nature.

He named

his favorite views

Forms, the doctrine of Series and Degrees, the

doctrine of Influx, the doctrine of Correspondence.

His statement of these doctrines deserves to be

SWEDENBORG;
studied in his books.

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

103

them, but they will reward him

Not every man can read who can. His

these.
sufficient

theologic works are valuable to illustrate

His writings would be a

lonely
of the

library to a

and

athletic student;
is

and the "Economy

one of those books
is

Animal Kingdom "

race.

which, by the sustained dignity of thinking,

an

honor to the human

He had

studied spars
solid

and metals

to

some purpose.

His varied and

knowledge makes his

style lustrous with

points

and shooting
with crystals.

spiculse of thought,

and resembling

one of those winter mornings when the air sparkles

The grandeur

of the topics

makes

the grandeur of the style.

He was

apt for cosmol-

ogy, because of that native perception of identity

which made mere

size of

no account to him.

In

the atom of magnetic iron he saw the quality which

would generate the

spiral

motion of sun and planet.

The thoughts
sality of

in which he lived were, the univer;

each law in nature

;

the Platonic doctrine

of the scale or degrees

of each into other,
all

the version or conversion

so the correspondence of
little

and

the parts; the fine secret that

explains

large,

and

large, little;

the centrality of

man

in

nature,

and the connection that

things
:

subsists through-

out

all

he saw that the

human body was

;

strictly universal, or

an instriunent through which

fed by the whole of matter

the soul feeds

and

is


104

REPRESENTATIVE MEN. man

more

SO that he held, in exact antagonism to the skeptics,

that " the wiser a

is,

the

will he be a wor-

shipper of the Deity."

In

short,

he was a believer
idly,

in the Identity-philosophy,

which he held not

as the dreamers of Berlin or Boston, but which he

experimented with and established through years

of labor, with the heart

and strength

of the rudest
to battle.

Viking that

his

rough Sweden ever sent

This theory dates from the oldest philosophers,

and derives perhaps

newest.

its

best illustration

from the

It is this, that

Nature

iterates her

means

perpetually on successive planes.

In the old aphorIn the plant,

ism, nature is always self-similar.

the eye or germinative point opens to a leaf, then to

another

leaf,

with a power of transforming the leaf

into radicle, stamen, pistil, petal, bract, sepal, or seed.

The whole

art of the plant

is still

to repeat leaf

on

leaf without end, the

more or

less of heat, light,

it

moisture and food determining the form

shall

assume.

In the animal, nature makes a vertebra, or

still

a spine of vertebrae, and helps herself

spine, with a limited

by a new
form,

power of modifying

its

spine on spine, to the end of the world.

a,natomist, in our

A poetic

own
line,

day, teaches that a snake,

being a horizontal
line,

and man, being an erect

;

constitute a right angle

tliis

and between the

lines of

mystical quadrant all animated beinga

:

find their place

and he assumes the hair-worm^

SWEDENBORG;
tion of the spine.
spine,

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

105

the span-worm, or the snake, as the type or predic-

Manifestly, at the end of the

;

Nature puts out smaller spines, as arms

at

the end of the arms,

new

sj)ines,

as hands

at the

other end, she repeats the process, as legs and feet.

At

the top of the column she puts out another

spine,

which doubles or loops

ball,

itself over,

as a span-

worm, into a
ities

and forms the

skull,

with extrem-

again

the hands being

now

the upper jaw,

the feet the lower jaw, the fingers and toes being

represented this time by upper and lower teeth.

This new spine

is

destined to high uses.

last.

It is

new man on
most shed

the shoulders of the

It can al-

its

trunk and manage to

Platonic
idea
in

live alone, ac*

cording to the

the

Timseus.

Within

it,

on a higher plane,
itself.

all that

was done in
a finer

the trunk repeats

Nature

recites her lesson

is

once more in a higher mood.

body, and resumes
its

The mind

functions of feeding, digest-

ing, absorbing, excluding

and generating,

in a

new

and ethereal element.

Here

in the brain is all the

process of alimentation repeated, in the acquiring,

comparing, digesting and assimilating of experience.

Here again
here
is

is

the mystery of generation refaculis

peated.
ties
;

In the brain are male and female

marriage, here
is fruit.

And

there

no limit to
ries.

this

ascending

scale,

but series on
use, is

se-

Every

thing, at the

end of one

taken

106

REPRESENTATIl^ MEN.

up

into the next, each series punctually repeating

last.

every organ and process of the

We
is

are

adapted to

infinity.

We
;

are hard to please,

and
into

love nothing which ends

and in nature

no end,

but every thing at the end of one use

is lifted

a superior, and the ascent of these things climbs

into daemonic

and

celestial natures.

Creative force,
re-

like a musical composer, goes

on unweariedly

peating a simple air or theme,

now

high,

now

low,

in solo, in chorus, ten thousand times reverberated,

till it fills

earth and heaven with the chant.

Gravitation, as explained

by Newton,

is

good,

but grander when we find chemistry only an extension of the law of masses into particles,

and that

the atomic theory shows the action of chemistry to

be mechanical

also.

Metaphysics shows us a sort

of gravitation operative also in the mental

phenomsta-

ena
tists

and the

terrible tabulation of the

French

brings every piece of

whim and humor

to be

reducible also to exact numerical ratios.

If one

man

in twenty thousand, or in thirty thousand, eats

shoes or marries his grandmother, then in every

twenty thousand or thirty thousand

is

found one

man who What we

eats shoes or marries his grandmother.

call gravitation,

and fancy ultimate,

excellent ; but

is

one fork of a mightier stream for which we have

yet no name.

Astronomy

is

it

must

come up

into life to have its full value,

and not r&

SWEDENBORG
main there
in globes

OR,

THE MYSTIC.
axis in the
;

107
of

and
its

spaces.

The globule

blood gyrates around

own

human

veins, as the planet in the sky

and the

circles of

intellect relate to those of the heavens.

Each law

of nature has the like universality; eating, sleep or

hybernation, rotation, generation, metamorphosis,

vortical motion,

which

is

seen in eggs as in planets.

These grand rhymes or returns in nature,

the
it

dear, best-known face startling us at every turn,

under a mask so unexpected that we think

face of a stranger, and carrying
into divine forms,

the

up the semblance

delighted the prophetic eye of

by giving
to science

Swedenborg

and he must be reckoned a leader in

an
idea,

that revolution, which,

has given to an aimless accumulation of experiments, guidance and form and a beating heart.
I

own with some

regret that his printed works

amount
it

to about fifty stout octavos, his scientific

;

works being about half of the whole number

appears that a mass of manuscript
still

and

unedited

remains in the royal library at Stockholm.

scientific

The

works have

just

now been

translated into

English, in an excellent edition.

Swedenborg printed these

from that time neglected
century
in
is

scientific

books in the

ten years from 1734 to 1744,

;

and they remained

their

and now, after

complete, he has at last found a pupil

in

Mr. Wilkinson,

London, a philosophic

critic.

108

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
Lord Bacon's, who has

with a coequal vigor of understanding and imagination comparable only to

restored his master's buried books to the day, and

transferred them, with every advantage, from their

forgotten Latin into English, to go round the world

in our commercial

and conquering tongue.

This

startling reappearance of

Swedenborg, after a hunnot the least remarkable

it is

dred years, in his pupil,

fact in his history.

is

Aided

said

by the munifi-

cence of Mr. Clissold, and also by his literary skiQ,

this piece of poetic justice is done.

The admirable
all the

preliminary discourses with which Mr. Wilkinson

has enriched these volumes, throw

contem-

porary philosophy of England into shade, and leave

me

nothing to say on their proper grounds.

is

The "Animal Kingdom"

ful merits.

a book of wonder-

It was written with the highest end,

to put science

and the

soul,

long estranged from

each other, at one again.

account of the
of poetry.

It

was an anatomist's

human

body, in the highest style

brill-

Nothing can exceed the bold and

iant treatment of a subject usually so dry

repulsive.

and

He

saw nature " wreathing through

with wheels that never dry,

an everlasting

spiral,

on axles that never creak, " and sometimes sought " to uncover those secret recesses where Nature is
sitting at the fires in the depths

of

her labora.

tory;" whilst the picture comes recommended by

SWEDENBORG
anatomy.
It is

OR,

THE MYSTIC.
it is

109

the hard fidelity with which

based on practical
sublime genius

remarkable that

this

decides peremptorily for the analytic, against the

synthetic

method

and, in a book whose genius

is

a daring poetic synthesis, claims to confine himseK

to a rigid experience.

He

knows,

if

he only, the flowing of nature, and

of

how wise was that old answer who bade him drink up the sea,
if

Amasis

to

" Yes,

him

^villingly,

you

will

stop the rivers that flow in."

Few

knew

as

much about

nature and her subtle man-

ners, or

expressed more subtly her goings.

is

He
by

thought as large a demand

nature, as

made on our

faith

by

miracles.
first

"

He

noted that in her

proceeding from

principles through her several

subordinations, there was no state through which

she did not pass, as

things."

if

her path lay through

all

" For as often as she betakes herself

visible

upward from

phenomena,

or, in

other words,
it

withdraws herseK inward, she instantly as

disappears, while no one

were

knows what has become

:

of her, or whither she is gone

so that

it is

necessary

to take science as a guide in pursuing her steps."

The pursuing
end or
sort of

the inquiry under the light of an

final cause gives

wonderful animation, a
writing.

personality to the whole

his favorite

This

book announces

dogmas.

The ancient
is

doctrine of Hippocrates, that the brain

a gland

110

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
macrocosm by the

and of Leucippus, that the atom may be known by

the mass
;

or,
;

in

Plato, the

microcosm

and, in the verses of Lucretius,

Ossa videhcet e pauxillis atque minutis

Ossibus
sic et

de pauxillis atque minutis

Visceribus viscus gigni, sanguenque creari

Sanguinis inter se multis coeuntibus guttis

Ex

aurique putat
et

niicis consistere

posse
;

Aurum,

de

terris

terram concrescere parvis

Ignibus ex igneis, huniorem humoribus esse.

Lib.
I.

835.

" The principle of

all things, entrails

;

made
;

Of

smallest entrails

bone, of smallest bone

Blood, of small sanguine drops reduced to one

Gold, of small grains

earth, of small sands

fire

compacted
"
:

Small drops to water, sparks to

contracted

and which Malpighi had summed

that "nature exists entire in leasts,"

in

his
is

maxim

a favorite

thought of Swedenborg.

" It

is

a constant law of

the organic body that large, compound, or visible

forms exist and subsist from smaller, simpler and

ultimately from invisible forms, which act similarly
to the larger ones, but

more

perfectly

and more

universally

and the

least

forms so perfectly and

unities of each organ

universally as to involve an idea representative of

their entire universe."

The
of

are so

many
:

little

organs, homogeneous with their

compound
tongues
;

the

unities

the

tongue are
little

little

those

of

the stomach,

stomachs

SWEDENBORG;
those of the heart are

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

Ill

little hearts.

This fruitful

idea furnishes a key to every secret.

too small for the eye to detect

What was
units.

was read by the

aggregates

what was too

large,

by the
little

There

is

no end
is

to his application of the thought,

" Hunger

an aggregate of very many

hun-

gers, or losses of blood

by the

little

veins all over

the body."
is

It is a

key

to his theology also.

" Man

a kind of very minute heaven, corresponding to

the world of spirits and to heaven.

Every

partic-

ular idea of man, and every affection, yea, every

smallest part of his affection,
effigy of him.
is

an image and

spirit

may be known from only

the grand man."
of his study of

a single thought.

God

is

The hardihood and thoroughness

nature required a theory of forms also.

"

Forms

ascend in order from the lowest to the highest.

corporeal.

The lowest form is angular, or the terrestrial and The second and next higher form is
is

the circular, which

also called the

perpetualis

angular, because the circumference of a circle

a perpetual angle.
spiral,

The form above

this is the
:

parent and measure of circular forms

its

diameters are not rectilinear, but variously circular,

and have a spherical surface for centre

it is

therefore

called the perpetual-circular.

The form above

:

this is the vortical, or perpetual-spiral

next, the

perpetual-vortical, or celestial
celestial, or spiritual."

last,

the perpetual-

112

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
it

Was

strange

tliat

a genius so bold should take

the last step also, should conceive that he might

attain the science of
all

sciences, to
first

unlock the

meaning

of the world ?

In the

volume of the

" Animal Kingdom," he broaches the subject in a

remarkable note
tions

" In our doctrine of Kepresentashall treat of

and Corresj)ondences we

both

these symbolical and typical resemblances, and of the astonishing things which occur, I mil not say
in the living

body

only, but throughout nature,

and

which correspond so entirely to supreme and

spirit-

ual things that one would swear that the physical

world was purely symbolical of the spiritual world

insomuch that

if

we choose
and

to express

any natural

truth in physical

definite vocal terms,

and to
a

convert these terms only into the corresponding

and

spiritual terms,

we

shall

by

this

means

elicit

spiritual truth or theological

dogma, in place of
:

the physical truth or precept

although no mortal

would have predicted that any thing of the kind

could possibly arise by bare literal transposition

inasmuch as the one precept, considered separately

from the
relation to

other,
it.

appears to have absolutely no

I intend hereafter to communicate

a number of examples of such correspondences,

together with a vocabulary containing the terms of
spiritual things, as well as of the physical things

for which they are to be substituted.

This sym.

holism pervades the living body."

SWEDENBORG;
The

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

113

fact thus explicitly stated is implied in all

poetry, in allegory, in fable, in the use of

emblems

and in the structure of language.

as
is

Plato

knew

it,

evident from his twice bisected line in the

sixth

book of the Republic.

Lord Bacon had

seal

found that truth and nature differed only as

and print
sitions,

and he instanced some physical propo-

with their translation into a moral or po-

litical sense.

Behmen, and

all mystics,

imply this

law in their dark riddle-writing.

far as they are poets, use
it
;

The
it

poets, in as
is

but

known

to

them only as the magnet was known for ages, as a Swedenborg first put the fact into a detached toy. and scientific statement, because it was habitually
present to him, and never not seen.
volved, as
identity
It

was

in-

we explained
iteration,

already, in the doctrine of

and

because the mental series

series.

exactly

tallies

with the material

It

re-

quired an insight that could rank things in order

and

series

or rather

it

required such rightness of

position that the poles of the eye should coincide

with the axis of the world.

The earth had fed

its

mankind through
had

five or six

millenniums, and they

sciences, religions, philosophies,

and yet had

failed to see the correspondence of

meaning be-

tween every part and every other part. And, down

to this hour, literature has

no book in which the

symbolism of things
VOL. IV.
8

is

scientifically opened.

One

114

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
first

would say that as soon as men had the

that every sensible object,

hint

nay, space and

finally to

animal,

rock, river, air,

time, subsists not for itself, nor

a material end, but as a picture-language

to tell another story of beings

and

duties, other

science would be put by,

and a science
all faculties
:

of such

grand presage would absorb

that each

man would

ask of

all

objects

what they mean

fast,

Why
and

does the horizon hold

me

with

my

joy

grief, in this centre ?

Why

hear I the same

sense from countless differing voices, and read one

never quite expressed fact in endless picture-lan-

guage ?

Yet whether

it

be that these things will

not be intellectually learned, or that

ries

many

centu-

must elaborate and compose

so rare

and opufos-

lent a soul,
sil,

there

is

no comet, rock=stratum,

fish,

quadruped, spider, or fungus, that, for

itself,

does not interest more scholars and classi-

fiers

than the meaning and upshot of the frame of

things.

But Swedenborg was not content with the

nary use of the world.
these thoughts held

culi-

In his fifty-fourth year

fast,

him

and

his

profound

mind admitted
son, to

the perilous opinion, too frequent

in religious history, that he

was an abnormal
and

per-

whom was
itself

granted the privilege of convers;

ing with angels and spirits

nected

this ecstasy con-

with just this

office of

explaining the

SWEDENBORG

OR,

THE MYSTIC.
To a

115
right

moral import of the sensible world.

perception, at once broad
of

and minute, of the order

social aspects

nature,

he added the comprehension of the

;

moral laws in their widest

but what-

ever he saw, through some excessive determination

to

form in his
in events.

constitution,
it

he saw not abstractly,

but in pictures, heard

it

in dialogues, constructed

When

he attempted to announce the

it

law most sanely, he was forced to couch

ble.

in para-

Modern psychology
a deranged balance.

offers

no similar example of

The

principal powers contin-

ued

to maintain

a healthy action, and to a reader

in the report for the
still

who can make due allowance

tive,

reporter's peculiarities, the results are

instruc-

and a more striking testimony

to the sublime

laws he announced than any that balanced dulness

could afford.
of the

He

attempts to give some account

modus

of the

new

state, affirming that " his

is

presence in the spiritual world

attended with a
" and he

certain separation, but only as to the intellectual

part of his mind, not as to the will part

affirms that

"he

sees,

with the internal sight, the

life,

things that are in another

more

clearly than

he sees the things which are here in the world."

the

Having adopted the belief that certain books of Old and New Testaments were exact allegories,

or written in the angelic and ecstatic mode, ho em-

116

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

ployed his remaining years in extricating from the

literal,

the universal sense.

He had

borrowed from

Plato the fine fable of " a most ancient people,

better than

men
"
;

we and dwelling nigher

that these,

to the gods

and Swedenborg added that they used the earth

symbolically
;

when they saw

terrestrial

objects, did not think at all about them, but only

about those which they signified.

The correspondoc-

ence between thoughts and things henceforward

cupied him.

"The

very organic form resembles

it."

the end inscribed on

in particular

A man is in general
Arcana
"

and

an organized
in the

justice or injustice, sel-

fishness or gratitude.

And

the cause of this har:

mony he assigned why all and single

The reason
and on
from

things, in the heavens

earth, are representative, is because they exist

an influx of the Lord, through heaven."

adequately executed, would be the

This deif

sign of exhibiting such correspondences, which,

poem

of the

world, in which all history and science would play

an

essential part,

was narrowed and defeated by

not hu-

the exclusively theologic direction which his inquiries took.

His perception of nature

is

is

man and

universal, but

mystical and Hebraic.

He
tion

fastens each natural object to a theologic no;

a horse
perception

signifies carnal
;

understanding
;

tree,

the
;

moon, faith
an artichoke

a cat means
this other
i

this

an ostrich that

SWEDENBORG;
The

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

117

and poorly tethers every symbol

clesiastic sense.

to a several ecis

slippery Proteus

not so

easily caught.

In nature, each individual symbol

plays innumerable parts, as each particle of matter

circulates in turn through every system.
tral identity enables

The

cen-

any one symbol

to express suc-

cessively all the qualities

and shades

of real being.

In the transmission of the heavenly waters, every

hose
fits

every hydrant.

Nature avenges herself

speedily on the hard pedantry that would chain her

waves.

She

is

no

literalist.

Every thing must be

taken genially, and we must be at the top of our

condition to understand any thing rightly.

His theological bias thus

interpretation of nature,
bols
is

fatally narrowed his and the dictionary of sym-

yet to be

written.
still

But the interpreter

no preso near to the true

whom mankind must

decessor

expect, will find

who has approached

problem.

Swedenborg
and by force
last

styles himself in the title-page of

his books, " Servant of the

Father in

Lord Jesus Christ " of intellect, and in effect, he is the the Church, and is not likely to have
;

a successor.

No wonder

that his depth of ethical

wisdom should give him influence as a teacher. To the mthered traditional church, yielding dry
catechisms, he let in nature again, and the worshipper, escaping

from the vestry of verbs and

texts, is

118

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
His religion thinks for him and

surprised to find himself a party to the whole of

his religion.
is

of
;

universal application.
it fits

He
life,

turns

it

on every side

every part of

interprets

and

dignifies

every circumstance.
visited

Instead of a religion which

him

diplomatically three or four times,

when he was born, when he married, when he fell sick and when he died, and, for the rest, never interfered with him,

here
;

was a teaching which

accompanied him
into

all

day, accompanied
into
his

him even

sleep

and dreams

thinking, and

showed him through what a long ancestry his

thoughts descend
;

into society,

and showed by
and showed
friendly,

what

affinities
;

he was girt to his equals and his

into

counterparts
their origin

natural

objects,

and meaning, what are

;

and

what are hurtful

His

and opened the future world

of

by indicating the continuity

ated by the study of his books.

the

same laws.

disciples allege that their intellect is invigor-

There

is

no such problem for criticism as his

theological writings, their merits are so

ing, yet

commandis like

such grave

deductions must be made.

the
are

Their mimense and sandy diffuseness

prairie or the desert,
like the last deliration.

and
of

their incongruities

He is

superfluously explan-

atory,

and

his feeling

the ignorance of men,

strangely exaggerated.

Men

take truths of this

SWEDENBORG;
nature very
is

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

119

fast.

Yet he abounds

in assertions, lie

a rich discoverer, and of things which most im-

port us to know.

His thought dwells in

essential

resemblances, like the resemblance of a house to

the

man who

built

it.

He

saw things in their law,

There
is

in likeness of function, not of structure.

an invariable method and order in his delivery of

his truth, the habitual proceeding of the

mind from

inmost to outmost.
iness,

What

earnestness and weight-

his eye never roving, without one swell of

vanity, or one look to self in

literary pride
!

any common form of

a theoretic or speculative man, but

whom no
to
scorn.

practical

man
is

in the imiverse could affect

;

Plato

a gownsman

his garment,
is

though of purple, and almost sky-woven,

academic robe and hinders action with nous
folds.
its

an

volumi-

But

this

mystic

is

awful to Caesar.

Lycurgus himself would bow.

The moral
of popular
laws, take

insight of Swedenborg, the correction

errors, the announcement of ethical him out of comparison with any other modern writer and entitle him to a place, vacant for some ages, among the lawgivers of mankind. That slow but commanding influence which he has

acquired, like that of other religious geniuses,

must
subis

be excessive
sides into a

also,

and have

its tides,

before

it

permanent amount.

Of

course what

real

and universal cannot be confined

to the circle

120
of those

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
who sympathize
strictly

with his genius,

stock of wise

but will pass forth into the

common
is

and

just thinking.
it

The world has a

what

sure chemistry,

by which
dren and

extracts

excellent in its chil-

lets fall

the infirmities and limitations of

the grandest mind.

That metempsychosis which

is

familiar in the

old mythology of the Greeks, collected in

Ovid
there
alien

and
will,

in the Indian Transmigration,

and

is

objective^ or really takes place in bodies

by

in

Swedenborg's mind has a more philoIt

is

sophic character.
entirely

subjective,

or

depends
All

upon the thought

of

the person.

things in the universe arrange themselves to each

person anew, according to his ruling love.

is

such as his affection

and thought

are.

Man Man is
knowsees.

man by

virtue of willing, not

by

virtue of
is,

ing and understanding.

As he

so

he

The marriages of the world are broken up.

teriors associate all in the spiritual world.

In-

Whatto

ever the angels looked upon was to them celestial.

Each Satan appears

as

to

himseK a man;

those

bad

as he, a comely

man

to the

purified,
:

heap of carrion.
thing gravitates
:

Nothing can

resist states
:

every
call

like will to like

what we

poetic justice takes effect on the spot.

We have
Every

come
thing

into a world
is

which

is

a living poem.
is

as I am.

Bird and beast

not bird and

SWEDENBORG;
beast,

OR,

THE MYSTIC.
tlie

121

but emanation and effluvia of

minds

and
his

wills of

men

there present.
state.

Every one makes

ghosts are tor-

own house and

The

mented with the fear

of death

and cannot rememare in evil

ber that they have died.

They who
of all others.

and falsehood are afraid

flee:

Such as

have deprived themselves of charity, wander and

the
societies

which they approach discover

their quality

and drive them away.

deposited,

The
in

covetcells

ous seem to themselves to be abiding

where their money

infested with mice.

is

and these
place

to

be
"I
re-

They who

merit in

good works seem

asked such,
if

to themselves to cut

wood.

they were not wearied?

They

plied, that they

have not yet done work enough

to merit heaven."

He

delivers golden sayings

which express with

laws
;

singular

beauty the ethical

as

when he

uttered that

famed

sentence, that "

In heaven the

angels are advancing continually to the spring-

time of their youth, so that the oldest angel ap-

youngest " " The more angels, the more room " " The perfection of man is the love " of use " " Man, in his perfect form, is heaven
pears
the
: :

"

What

is

from Him,

ascend as nature

Him " descends." And

is
:

"

Ends always

the truly poetic

account of the writing in the inmost heaven, which,

as
it

consists of

inflexions according to the

form

122

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

of heaven, can be read without instruction.

He

almost

justifies his

claim to preternatural vision,

by strange insights of the structure of the human "It is never permitted to any body and mind. one, in heaven, to stand behind another and look
at the
is

back of his head

is

for then the influx which

from the Lord

disturbed."

the sound of the voice,

The angels, from know a man's love from

;

the articulation of the sound, his

wisdom

and

from the sense of the words, his science. In the "Conjugal Love," he has unfolded the
science of marriage.

Of

this

book one would say

it

that with the highest elements

success.

has failed of
of Love,
;

It

came near
Dante

to

be the

Hymn

which Plato attempted in the

love, which, says, Casella

" Banquet

" the

sang among the

angels in Paradise; and which, as rightly celebrated, in

its

genesis, fruition
it

and

effect,

might

well entrance the souls, as

would lay open the

the

genesis of all institutions, customs and manners.

The book had been grand

cism, as ethics,
of state
is

if

Hebraism had

been omitted and the law stated without Gothi-

and with that scope for ascension

It

which the nature of things requires.

teaching
that

a fine Platonic development of the science of

;

marriage

sex

is

universal,

and

not local; virility in the male qualifying every

organ, act, and thought
;

and

the feminine in

SWEDENBORG;
woman.
the nuptial union sant and total
;

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

123

Therefore in the real or spiritual world

is

not momentary, but inceslocal,

and chastity not a

;

but a

universal virtue

unchastity being discovered as

much

in the trading, or planting, or speaking, or

;

philosophizing, as in generation

and

that,

though

the virgins he saw in heaven were beautiful, the

wives were incomparably more beautiful, and went

on increasing in beauty evermore.

Yet Swede nborg,

after

his

mode, pinned his

theory to a temporary form.

He

exaggerates the

circumstance of marriage; and though he finds

false marriages

on earth, fancies a wiser choice

souls, all loves

in

heaven.

But of progressive
are

and

friendships

momentary.
see the

Do

you

love

me

means.

Do you

same truth?

If you do,
:

we

are

happy with the same happiness

but pres-

ently one of us passes into the perception of

truth

we

new
deli-

are divorced,

and no tension in naI

ture can hold us to each other,

cious
is this

know how

cup of

love,

existing for you,

you

existing for

me
;

but

it is

a child's clinging to his

toy
tial

an attempt

to eternize the fireside

and nupconveyed.

chamber
our
of

to

keep the picture-alphabet through

lessons
is

which

first

are

prettily
:

The Eden
side, it

God

bare and grand

like the outfire-

door landscape remembered from the evening

seems cold and desolate whilst you cower

124

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
we
the
pity

over the coals, but once abroad again,

those
for

who can

forego the magnificence of nature

candle-light

and

cards.

Perhaps
"
is

true

subject of the " Conjugal

Love

Conversation^
It is false,
is

whose laws are profoundly

if literally

set forth.

applied to marriage.

For God

the

bride or bridegroom of the soul.

the pairing of two, but the

Heaven is not communion of all souls.

We

meet, and dwell an instant under the temple

thought, and part, as though

of one

we parted

not, to join another thought

in other fellowships

of joy.

So
is

far

from there being anything divine

of

in the low

and proprietary sense

Do

you love

me?

it

only Vv^hen you leave and lose

is

me by
higher

casting yourself on a sentiment which

than both of
at your side
;

us, that I

draw near and

repelled
if

find myself
fix

and I

am

you

your

eye on
itual

me and demand
me
;

love.

In

fact, in the spir-

world we change sexes every moment.

then I

You

love the worth in

am

your husband

but
love

it
;

is

not me, but the worth, that fixes the

is

and that worth

is

a drop of the ocean of

worth that

beyond me.

Meantime I adore the

in

greater worth in another, and so become his wife.

He
and

aspires to a higher worth

is

another

spirit,

wife or receiver of that influence.

Whether from a

self-inquisitorial habit that

ho

SWEDENBORG;
grew
into

OR,

THE MYSTIC.
sins to

125

from jealousy of the

which men

of thought are liable, he has acquired, in disentan-

gling and demonstrating that particular form of

moral disease, an acumen which no conscience can

resist.

I refer to his feeling of the profanation of

is

thinking to what

good, " from scientiiics." "

is

To

reason about faith,

to

doubt and deny."

He

was painfully
expressed.

alive to the difference

between knowis

ing and doing, and this sensibility

Philosophers
are,

incessantly
vipers,

therefore,

cockatrices, asps, hemorrhoids, presters,

and flying

serpents; literary
tans.

men

are conjurors and charla-

But
here

this topic suggests

a sad afterthought, that

we

find

tlie

seat of his

own

pain.

Possibly

Swedenborg paid the penalty of introverted faculties.

Success, or a fortunate genius, seems to

depend on a happy adjustment of heart and brain

on a due proportion, hard

those chemical ratios which

to hit,

of moral

and

mental power, which perhaps obeys the law of

make a
rates,

proportion in

volumes necessary to combination, as when gases

will
rate.

combine in certain fixed

It
is

but not at any

;

hard to carry a

full

cup

and

this

man,

profusely endowed in heart and mind, early fell

into dangerous discord with himself.

In his Ani-

mal Kingdom he surprised us by declaring that he loved analysis, and not synthesis ; and now, after

126

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
and though aware that truth
his
it,

his fiftieth year, he falls into jealousy of his intellect

;

is

not solitary

nor

is

goodness solitary, but both must ever mix

and marry, he makes war on

part of the conscience against
sions, traduces
is is is

mind, takes the

and, on
all occa-

and blasphemes
Beauty

it.

The

violencp

instantly avenged.

is

disgraced, love

unlovely,

when

truth, the half part of heaven,

denied, as

much

as

when a

bitterness in

men
is

of talent leads to satire and destroys the judgment.

He
an

is

wise, but wise in his

own

despite.

There

air of infinite gTief

and the sound

of wailing all

over and through this lurid universe.

sits

A vampyre
Indeed, a
nest, or

in the

seat of

the prophet and turns with

gloomy appetite

to the

images of pain.
its

bird does not more readily weave

mole bore into the ground, than

souls

this
pit,

seer of the

substructs

a new hell and

last,

each more

abominable than the

of offenders.

round every new crew

He was

let

down through a column

it

that seemed of brass, but

spirits,

was formed of angelic

that he might descend safely amongst the

unhappy, and witness the vastation of souls and

hear there, for a long continuance, their lamentations
:

he saw their tormentors, who increase and

strain

pangs to

infinity

he saw the hell of the

jugglers, the hell of the assassins, the hell of the

lascivious

the hell of robbers,

who

kill

and

boi)

SWEDENBORG;
men
;

OR,

THE MYSTIC.
;

127

tlie

infernal tun of the deceitful

;

the excre-

mentitious hells
faces

the hell of the revengeful, whose

resembled a round, broad cake, and their

like

arms rotate

a wheel.

Except Rabelais and

filth

Deai^ Swift nobody ever had such science of

and corruption.
These books should be used with caution.
It is

dangerous to sculpture these evanescing images of

thought.
fixed.

True

in transition, they

become

false if

It requires, for his just apprehension, al-

most a genius equal

visions

to his own.

But when

his

become the stereotyped language

all

of multi-

tudes of persons of

degrees of age and capacity,

of the

they are perverted.

The wise people

Greek

race were accustomed to lead the most intelligent

and virtuous young men,

as part of their education,

through the Eleusinian mysteries, wherein, with

much pomp and graduation, the highest truths known to ancient wisdom were taught. An ardent and contemplative young man, at eighteen or

twenty years, might read once these books

of

Swedenborg, these mysteries of love and conscience,

and then throw them aside for

ever haunted by similar dreams,

ever.

Genius

is

and the heavens are opened

to

it.

when But
is,

the hells
these picas a quite

tures are to be held as mystical, that

arbitrary and accidental picture of the truth,

as the truth.

not

Any

other symbol would be as good ;

then this

is

safely seen.

128

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
dynamic, not
life.

Swedenborg's system of the world wants central

spontaneity;
it

is

vital,

and lacks
whose

power to generate
it.

There

is

no individual in
all

The universe

is

a gigantic crystal,

atoms and laminse

lie

in uninterrupted order
still.

and

with unbroken unity, but cold and

What
is

seems an individual and a

will, is

none.

There

an immense chain of intermediation, extending from centre to extremes, which bereaves every agency
of all freedom

and character.

The

universe, in his

poem,
flects

suffers

under a magnetic

sleep,

and only

re-

the mind

of the magnetizer.

Every thought

comes into each mind by influence from a society of spirits that surround it, and into these from a
higher society, and so on.

All his

t^^Des

mean

the

same few

things.

All his figures speak one speech.

All his interlocutors Swedenborgize.

This Charon ferries them

Be they who

they may, to this complexion must they come at

last.

all

over in his boat

kings, counsellors, cavaliers, doctors. Sir Isaac

ton, Sir

New-

Hans

Sloane,

King George

II.,

Mahomet,

or whomsoever, and

all

gather one grimness of hue

by, our gentle

and

style.

Only when Cicero comes

of

seer sticks a little at saying he talked with Cicero,

and with a touch

human

relenting remarks, " one

whom
when

it

was given
soi

me

to believe

was Cicero "

opens
his

and

the

disant

Roman

mouth,
plain

Rome and

eloquence have ebbed away,

it is

SWEDENBORG;
theologic

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

129

Swedenborg
;

like the rest.

His heavens
not there.

and

hells are dull

fault of

want of individualism.
is

The thousand - fold, relation of men The interest that attaches in nature

to each

man,

because he is right by his wrong, and wrong by his right because he defies all dogmatizing and classi;

fication, so

many

allowances and contingences and

futurities are to be taken into account; strong

by

his vices, often paralyzed

by his virtues
his society.

sinks
the

into entire

sympathy with

This want

reacts to the centre of the system.

Though
is

agency of "the Lord"

is

in every line referred to

alive.

by name,

it

never becomes

There

no lustre

in that eye which gazes from the centre and which

should vivify the immense dependency of beings.

The

vice of Swedenborg's

mind

is its

theologic
liberal-

determination.
ity of universal

Nothing with him has the

wisdom, but we are always in a

lore

church.
of right

That Hebrew muse, which taught the

and wrong
to

men, had the same excess of

influence for

him

it

has had for the nations.

sacred.

The

mode, as well as the essence, was

is

Palestine

ever the more valuable as a chapter in universal

history,

and ever the

less

an available element in

education.
all

The genius

of

Swedenborg, largest of

modern

souls in this department of thought,

wasted

itself in

the endeavor to reanimate and conat its natural term,

serve what

had already arrived

130

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
prominence, before Western modes of

and, in the great secular Providence, was retiring

from

its

thought and expression.

Swedenborg and Behmen

both failed by attaching themselves to the Christian

symbol, instead of to the moral sentiment, which
carries innumerable Christianities, humanities, divinities, in its

bosom.

The

excess of influence shows itself in the incon'

gruous importation of a foreign rhetoric.

What
jas-

have I to do

'

asks the impatient reader,

;

with

per and sardonyx, beryl and chalcedony

arks and passovers, ephahs and ephods
lepers
;

what with

what with

and emerods

what with heave-offerings and

fire,

unleavened bread, chariots of

dragons crowned

and horned, behemoth and unicorn?

Orientals, these are nothing to me.

ing you bring to

the impertinence.

Good for The more learnexplain them, the more glaring The more coherent and elaboit.

rate the system, the less I like

I say, with the

to the pur-

Spartan, "

Why
is

do you speak so much

is

pose, of that

which

nothing to the purpose?"

My
and

learning

such as

God gave me
and study of

in

my

birth

habit, in the delight

my

eyes and

not of another man's.

Of

all absurdities, this of

some foreigner proposing to take away my rhetoric and substitute his own, and amuse me with pelican and stork, instead of thrush and robin
trees
;

palm-

and shittim - wood, instead

hickory,

seems the most

of sassafras

and

needless.'

SWEDENBORG;
Locke
does not
said, "

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

131

God, when he makes the prophet,

the man."

unmake

Swedenborg's history
disputes in the
"

points the remark.

The parish

Swedish church between the friends and foes of

Luther and Melancthon, concerning "

speculations

faith alone

and " works alone," intrude themselves

of the celestial societies.
son, for

into his

upon the economy of the universe, and

The Lutheran

bishop's

whom

the heavens are opened, so that he

sees with eyes

and

in the richest symbolic forms

the awful truth of things,

and

utters again in his

books, as under a heavenly mandate, the indisputable secrets of moral nature,

with

all these

grandbish-

eurs resting

upon him, remains the Lutheran

op's son; his

judgments are those of a Swedish

polemic, and his vast enlargements purchased by

adamantine limitations.
sial

He

carries his controver-

memory with him

in his visits to the souls.

frescoes,

He

is like

Michael Angelo, who, in his

put the

cardinal who had offended him to roast under a mountain of devils or like Dante, who avenged, in
;

vindictive melodies, all his private wrongs

or per-

haps
if

still

more

like Montaigne's parish priest,

who,

a hail-storm passes over the village, thmks the

is

day of doom

come, and the cannibals already

have got the pip.

less

Swedenborg confounds us not

with the pains of Melancthon and Luther and

Wolfius, and his

own

books, which he advertises

among

the angels.


182

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
the same tlieologic cramp,

Under
morals
is

many

of

Ms
in

dogmas are bound.

His

cardinal

position

that evils should be shunned as sins.

evil
is,

But he does not know what

is,

or what good

who thinks any ground remains

is

to

be occupied,
evil.

after saying that evil

to be

shunned as

doubt not he was led by the desire to insert the

element of personality of Deity.
added.

But nothing
erysipelas,
or,
evil.

is

One man, you

this

say, dreads
is evil is
:

show him that

hell,

show

dread

one dreads

him

that dread

He who
to

loves goodness, harbors

angels, reveres reverence

less

and lives with God.

The

we have
" That
is

do with

our sins the better.

his

No man

can afford to waste

is

moments

in

compunctions.

active

duty,"

say the Hindoos, " which

;

not for our

for our lib-

bondage
eration
ness."
:

that
all

is

knowledge, wliich
is

is

other duty

good only unto weari-

Another dogma, growing out of

theologic limitation,
is

this pernicious

his Inferno.

Swedenborg

has devils.
is

Evil,

according to old philosophers,

good in the making.

is

That pure malignity can

It
it is

exist
is

the extreme proj)osition of unbelief.

;

not to be entertained by a rational agent

;

atheism

it

is

rightly said,

the

last profanation.

Euripides

" Goodness aud being in the gods are one

He who

imputes

ill

to

them makes them none."

SWEDENBORG;
To what a painful
arrived, that

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

133

perversion had Gothic theology

Swedenborg admitted no conversion

!

for evil spirits

But the divine

effort is

never

relaxed
to grass

the carrion in the sun will convert itself

and flowers
true.

and man, though in brothels,

is

or

jails,

or on gibbets,

on his way to aU that

is

good and

Burns, with the wild himior of his apostrophe to poor " auld Nickie Ben,"
"

O wad

ye tak a thought, and

mend

"
!

has the advantage of the vindictive theologian.

Every thing
and truth
sentiment,

is

superficial

and perishes but love

truest
spirit

only.

The largest is always the and we feel the more generous

Vishnu, "I
is

of the Indian

am

the same to
is

aU

mankind.

There

not one

who

worthy of

my

love or hatred.
tion,

am

in

They who serve me with adorathem, and they in me. If one

evil serve

whose ways are altogether

is

me
is

alone,

he

as respectable as the just

;

man

he

altogether

well employed
spirit

he soon becometh of a virtuous

and obtaineth eternal happiness."

For the anomalous pretension of Revelations

of the other world,

only

his probity

and genius
His revelainto detail.

can entitle

it

to

any serious regard.

tions destroy their credit

by running

If a

man

say that the Holy Ghost has informed

him

that the Last

Judgment (or the

last of the

134
judgments),

REPRESENTATIVE MEN,
took place in

1757

or

tliat

the

Dutch, in the other world, live in a heaven by

themselves, and the English in a heaven
selves;

by themis

I reply that the

Spirit

which

holy

is

reserved, taciturn,

and deals

in laws.

The rumors
tell fortunes.

of ghosts

and hobgoblins gossip and

The

teachings of the high Sj)irit are abstemious,

Socrates's
find,

and, in regard to particulars, negative.

Genius did not advise him to act or to

dissuaded him.
not
;

but

if it

he purposed to do somewhat not advantageous,

" What

God

is,

" he said, " I

what he

is not, I

know."

know The Hindoos have

their

denominated the Supreme Being, the " Internal

Check."

The illuminated Quakers explained

Light, not as somewhat which leads to any action,

but

it

appears as an obstruction to any thing

unfit.

But the right examples are private experiences, which are absolutely at one on this point. Strictly
speaking, Swedenborg's revelation
of planes,
gorist.
is

a confounding

capital offence in so learned a cateto carry the

This

is

law of surface into

the plane of substance, to carry individualism

its

and

fopperies into the realm of essences

and gen-

erals,

which

is

dislocation

and chaos.
^ept from age to age.

The

secret of

heaven

is

No

imprudent, no sociable angel ever dropt an

early syllable to answer the longings of saints, the

fears of mortals.

We

should have listened on our

SWEDENBORG;
had brought

OR,

THE MYSTIC.

135

knees to any favorite, who, by stricter obedience,

his thoughts into parallelism with the

celestial currents

and could hint

must

to

human

ears the

scenery and circumstance of the newly parted soul.

But

it is

certain that
It

it

tally

with what

is

best

in nature.

must not be

inferior in tone to the

already

known works

of the artist

who

sculptures

the globes of the firmament and writes the moral

law.
It

must be fresher than rainbows, stabler

rising

than mountains, agreeing with flowers, with tides

and the

and

setting

of

autumnal

stars.

Melodious poets shaU be hoarse as street ballads

when once
spirit is

the penetrating key-note of nature and

sounded,

the

earth-beat, sea-beat, heartto

beat,

which makes the tune

which the sun

trees.

rolls,

and the globule of blood, and the sap of

In
this

mood we hear
:

the

has arrived, and his tale

beauty, no heaven

is

rumor that the seer But there is no told.

for angels, goblins.

pit.

The sad
His In-

muse
ferno

loves night
is

and death and the

His
spiritual

mesmeric.

world bears the

same relation
of
zant, as a

to the generosities

and joys of truth

life.

which human souls have already made us cogniman's bad dreams bear to his ideal
like, in its

It

is

indeed very
to

endless power of lurid

of

pictures,

the

phenomena

dreaming, which

nightly turns

many an

honest gentleman, benevo-

lent but dyspeptic, into a wretch, skulking like

136

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
of creation.

dog about the outer yards and kennels

When
its

he mounts into the heaven, I do not hear

language.

A man
me

should not
;

tell

me

that he
liis

has walked

among

the angels
one.

his proof is that

eloquence makes
less majestic

Shall the archangels be

figures that

and sweet than the

earth?

have

actually walked the

These angels that

of

Swedenborg paints give us no very high idea

their discipline

and culture
heaven
is

they are

all

country

parsons

their

a fete diamjpetre^ an

evangelical picnic, or French distribution of prizes

to virtuous peasants.
passionless, bloodless

Strange, scholastic, didactic,

man, who denotes

classes of

souls as a botanist disposes of a carex,

and

visits
!

doleful hells as a stratum of chalk or hornblende

He

has no sympathy.

world of

down the men, a modern Ehadamanthus in goldgoes up and

He

headed cane and peruke, and with nonchalance

and the air of a referee, distributes souls. The warm, many-weathered, passionate-peopled world is to him a grammar of hieroglyphs, or an emblematic

freemason's
!

procession.
7ie is

How

different

is

Jacob Behmen

tremulous with emotion and

listens awe-struck,

with the gentlest humanity, to

;

the Teacher whose lessons he conveys

and when

he asserts

that, " in

some

sort, love is

greater than

God," his heart beats so high that the thumping

against his leathern coat
is

audible across the cen

SWEDENBORG;
turies.
ily

OR,

THE MYSTIC,
Belimen
is

137
health-

'T

is

a great difference.

and beautifully

wise, notwithstanding the mys-

tical

narrowness and incommunicableness.

is

Swed-

enborg

disagreeably wise, and with all his accuparalyzes and repels.

mulated

gifts,

It is the best sign of

a great nature that

it

opens

a foreground, and, like the breath of

landscapes, invites us onward.
trospective, nor can

morning
is re-

Swedenborg

we

divest

him

of his

mattock

and shroud.

Some minds

are for ever restrained

;

from descending
of

into nature

others
it.

are

for ever

prevented from ascending out of

With

a force

many men, he

could never break the umbilical,

cord which held him to nature, and he did not rise

to the platform of pure genius. It is

remarkable that

this

man, who, by

his per-

ception of symbols, saw the poetic construction of

things and the primary relation of

mind

to matter,

remained entirely devoid of the whole apparatus of

poetic expression, which that perception
creates.

He knew

grammar and rudiments Mother-Tongue, how could he not read

the

of
off

the

one

strain into music ?

Was
fill

he like Saadi, who, in

his lap with the celestial
;

his vision, designed to

flowers, as presents for his friends

but the fra-

grance of the roses so intoxicated him that the

skirt

dropped from his hands

or

is

reporting a
?

breach of the manners of that heavenly society

138
or was
it

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
that he

saw the
as

vision intellectually,

and

hence that chiding of the intellectual that pervades

his books ?

Be

it

it

may,

his

books have no

melody, no

emotion, no humor, no relief to the

level.

dead prosaic
imagery
is

In his profuse and accurate

is

no pleasure, for there

no beauty.

We

wander forlorn

in a lack-lustre landscape.
all these

No

bird ever sang in

gardens of the dead.

so transcendent a
like a hoarse voice

The entire want of poetry in mind betokens the disease, and

in a beautiful

person,

is

a kind of warning.

think, sometimes, he will not be read longer.

His

great

name

will turn a sentence.

His books have

become a monument.

His laurel so largely mixed

with cypress, a charnel-breath so mingles with the

temple incense, that boys and maids will shun the

spot.

Yet
praise.

in this immolation of genius

is

and fame

at

the shrine of conscience,

a merit sublime beyond

:

He

lived to purj)ose

he gave a verdict.

He

elected goodness as the clue to which the soul

in all this labyrinth of nature.

must cling
opinions

Many
In the

conflict as to

the true

centre.

shipwreck, some cling to running rigging, some to

cask and barrel, some to spars, some to mast

pilot chooses
all will

the

with science,
;

plant myself here

to land

sink before this

"he comes

who

sails

with me."

Do

not rely on heavenly favor, or

or on prudence, on

on compassion to

folly,

common

SWEDENBORG;
sense, the old usage

OR,

THE MYSTIC.
of

139
:

ing can

keep you, not

;

and main chance

fate,

men

noth-

nor health, nor ad-

mirable intellect

none can keep you, but rectitude

only, rectitude for ever

and ever

And

with a

tenacity that never swerved in all his studies, inventions, dreams, he adheres to this brave choice.

I think of

him

as of

some transmigrating votary of

Indian legend, who says 'Though I be dog, or

jackal, or pismire, in the last rudiments of nature,

under what integument or

to God.'

ferocity, I

cleave to

right, as the sure ladder that leads

up

to

man and

Swedenborg has rendered a double

mankind, which
is

service to

now only beginning

to

be knowTi.

By

the science of experiment and use, he

steps
;
:

made

his

first

he observed and published the laws of

just degrees

nature

and ascending by

from events
with piety
to

to their

summits and causes, he was

fired

at the harmonies he felt,

his joy

and abandoned himself

first service.
if

and worship.

This was his

If

the glory was too bright for his eyes to bear,

he

staggered under the trance of delight, the more excellent is the spectacle he saw, the realities of being

which beam and blaze through him, and which no

in-

firmities of the prophet are suffered to obscure;

and he renders a second passive

not less than the
of being,
first,

service to

men,

perhaps, in the great circle

and,

in the retributions of spiritual na-

ture, not less glorious or less beautiful to himself.

MONTAIGNE; OK, THE SKEPTIC.

; ;

IV.

MONTAIGNE

OE,

THE SKEPTIC.

EvEET
is,

fact is related

on one side to sensation,

and on the other

find the other
side.

to morals.

The game

of thought
sides, to

on the appearance of one of these two

:

given the upper, to find the under

faces,

Nothing so thin but has these two

Life

and
it

when

the observer has seen the obverse, he turns

is

over to see the reverse.

a pitching of this never tire of this

penny,

heads

or

tails.

We

game, because there

is still

a slight shudder of as-

tonishment at the exhibition of the other face, at

the contrast of the two faces.

A man

is

flushed

with success, and bethinks himself what this good

luck
signifies.

He

drives his bargain in the street

is

but
see's

it

occurs that he also

bought and
face,

sold.

He

the beauty of a

human

and searches the

cause of that beauty, which must be more beautiful.

He

builds his fortunes, maintains the laws,

;

cherishes his children

but he asks himself.

Why ?

and whereto ?

This head and this

tail are called,

in the language of philosophy, Infinite

and Finite

144

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
;

Relative and Absolute

Apparent and Eeal

and

many

fine names beside. Each man is born with a

predisposition to one
;

or the other of these sides of nature

easily

and

it

will

happen

that

one or the other.

difference,
faces, cities

men will be found devoted One class has the perception

to

of

and

is

conversant with facts and sur-

and persons, and the bringing certain

;

things to pass

the

men

of talent

and

action.

Another
are

class

have the perception of identity, and

men

of faith

and philosophy, men of genius.

Plotinus

Each

of these riders drives too fast.

;

believes only in philosojDhers

Fenelon, in saints

Pindar and Byron, in

poets.

Read

the haughty

language in which Plato and the Platonists speak

of all

men who

are not devoted to their

:

own

shin-

ing abstractions

other

men

are rats

and mice.

The literary class is usually proud and exclusive. The correspondence of Pope and Swift describes mankind around them as monsters and that of Goethe and Schiller, in our own time, is scarcely
;

more kind.
It is easy to see

how

this arrogance comes.

first

The

genius
object.

is

a genius by the

look he casts on any

Is his eye creative ?

Does he not

rest in

angles and colors, but beholds the design?

presently undervalue the actual object.
ful

he

will

In power-

moments, his thought 'has dissolved the works

MONTAIGNE;
of art

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.

145

and nature

into their causes, so that the

faulty.

works appear heavy and

tion of beauty

He

has a concep-

which the sculptor cannot embody.

mind, without flaw, mistake,

Picture, statue, temple, railroad, steam-engine, existed first in

an

artist's

or friction, which impair the executed models.

So
cir-

did the Church, the State, college, court, social

cle,

and

all

the institutions.

It is not strange that

these men, remembering what they have seen

and

hoped of

ideas, should affirm disdainfully the supe-

riority of ideas.

Having

at

some time seen that

the happy soul will carry all the arts in power, they
say.

Why cumber

ourselves with superfluous reali-

zations? and like dreaming beggars they assume to

speak and act as

stantiated.

if

these values were already sub-

On
and

the other part, the luxury, the

men

of toil

and trade
the

animal world, including

also,

animal in the philosopher and poet

and the
poet
the

practical world, including the painful

drudgeries

which are never excused

to philosopher or

any more than

other side.

to the rest,

weigh heavily on
nothing of
traders

The trade

in our streets

believes in

no

metaphysical causes, thinks

necessitated
:

the

force which

and a trading
election

planet to exist

no, but

sticks to cotton, sugar,

wool and

salt.

The ward meetings, on

10

days, are not softened

VOL. IV.

by any misgiving of the

146

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
Hot
the
life is

value of these ballotings.

in a single direction.
to the

streaming

To

men

of this world,

animal streng-th and

spirits, to

the
it,

practical power, whilst immersed in

the

men of man

of ideas appears out of his reason.

They alone

have reason.

Things always bring their own philosophy with

them, that
is,

prudence.

No man
it

acquires prop-

erty without acquiring with

also.

little

arithmetic

In England, the richest country that ever

existed, property stands for more,

compared *with
After dinner,
:

personal ability, than in any other.

man

believes

less,

denies more

verities

have
is

lost

some charm.
science
:

After dinner, arithmetic

are
disturbing,

the

only

ideas

incendiary,

young men, repudiated by the solid portion of society: and a man comes to be valued by his athletic and animal qualities. Spence refollies of

Mr. Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when his nephew, a Guinea trader, came " Nephew," said Sir Godfrey, " you have the in.
lates that

honor of
world."

seeing

the two greatest

" I don't

know how

great

men in the men you may

better

be," said the Guinea man, " but I don't like your
looks.

I have often bought a

all

man much

than both of you,

guineas."

muscles and bones, for ten

of

Thus the men

the senses revenge

themselves on the professors and repay scorn for

MONTAIGNE;
scorn.

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.

147

yet ripe,

The first had leaped to conclusions not and say more than is true the others
;

make themselves merry with the philosopher, and weigh man by the pound. They believe that mustard bites the tongue, that pepper
is

hot, friction-

matches incendiary, revolvers are to be avoided,

and suspenders hold up pantaloons

that there

is

much

sentiment in a chest of tea

if

and a man

will

be eloquent,

you give him good wine.

tender and scrupulous,

pie.

They hold that when he said, " Wer nicht liebt

Are you you must eat more minceLuther had milk in him

Wein, "Weiber, Gesang,

sein

Der

bleibt ein

Narr

Leben lang "

;

well

and when he advised a yomig

with
fore-ordination

scholar, perplexed

and

free-will,

to

get

drunk.

"

The

nerves," says Cabanis, " they are

the man."

My

neighbor, a jolly farmer, in the

tavern bar-room, thinks that the use of

sure and speedy spending.

money

is

For

his part,

he says,
it.

be puts his down his neck and gets the good of

The inconvenience
that
gust.
it

of this

way

of thinking is
dis-

runs into indifferentism and then into

Life
is

eating us up.
cool
:

We
be

shall
all

be fables

presently.

Keep

it

will

one a hun-

dred years hence.

Life's

weU enough, but we

it,

shall be glad to get out of

and they mil

all

be glad to have

us.

Why

should

we

fret

and

148
drudge
did
?

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
Our meat
it.

will

taste

to-morrow as
last

it

yesterday,

and we may
"

at

have

had

enough of
matter."

Ah,"

said

my

languid gentleman
or true,

at Oxford, "there's nothing

new

and no
moans

With
our
of

little

more

bitterness, the ajnic

life is like

an ass led to market by a bundle

;

hay being carried before him

the

he sees nothing
is

but

bundle of

hay.
into

" There the world,"

so

much
Lord
as

trouble in coming

said

Bolingbroke,

" and so

much more,
it,

as
'tis

well

meanness, in going out of

that

hardly
philoso-

worth while to be here at

pher of
to
this

all."

knew a

kidney who was accustomed briefly

say-

sum up his experience of human nature in ing, " Mankind is a damned rascal " and
:

the

natural corollary

is

pretty sure to follow,

so will
I.'

'

The

world

lives

by humbug, and

The
tually

abstractionist

and the materialist thus muthe

scoffer

exasperating each other, and

expressing the worst of materialism, there arises

a third party to occupy the middle ground be-

tween these two, the skeptic, namely.

both wrong by being in extremes.
plant his feet, to be the

He

finds

He
He

labors to

beam

of

the balance.
sees
;

He

will

not go beyond his card.

the

one-sidedness of these

men

of the street

he will

not be a Gibeonite

he stands for the

intellectuaj

MONTAIGNE;
faculties,
it

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.

149

a cool head and whatever serves to keep

cool

no unadvised
no
dray

industry,

no unrewarded

self-devotion,

loss of the brains in toil.

?

an

ox, or a

You are
have

Am I

both in extremes, he

says.

You

that will

all solid,

and a world

of pig-lead, deceive yourselves grossly.

lieve yourselves rooted

You

be-

and grounded on adamant

last facts of

and

yet, if

we uncover the

our knowl-

edge, you are

spinning like bubbles in a river,

you know not whither or whence, and you are

bottomed and capped and wrapped in delusions.
Neither will he be betrayed to a book and wrapped
in a gown.

The

studious class are their

own

vic-

tims
their

they are thin and pale, their feet are cold,

heads are hot, the night

is

without sleep,
pallor, squalor,

the day a fear of interruption,

hunger and egotism.

see

what conceits

they entertain, they

If their days
;

you come near them and

are ab-

stractionists,

and spend

and nights in

dreaming some dream

of society to

in expecting the
built

homage

some precious scheme,

its

on a truth,

but destitute of proportion in

justness in
its

presentment, of

application,

and

of all energy of will

vitalize
it.

in the schemer to

embody and

But I see plainly, he says, that know that human strength is not
in avoiding extremes.
I,

I cannot see.

in extremes, but
will

at

least,

shun the
depth.

weakness

of

philosophizing

beyond

my

150

REPRESENTATIVE
is

MEN
we have

What
not ?

the use of pretending to powers

is

What

the use of pretending to assurances

we have

not, respecting the other life ?

?

Why

ex-

aggerate the power of virtue

before your time
high, will snap.
?

Why be

an angel
too

These

strings,

wound up

If there is a wish for immortality,

just that ?

and no evidence, why not say

are conflicting evidences,

If there
?

why

not state them

If

there

is

not ground for a candid thinker to

make
I tire

up

his mind, yea or nay,

?

why

not suspend the

judgment

I weary of these dogmatizers.

of these hacks of routine,

who deny
aKo-n-fiv^

the dogmas.

I neither affirm nor deny.

case.

I stand here to try the

to consider

I
it is.

am
to

here to consider,

how

I will try to keep the balance true.

Of

what use

take the chair and glibly rattle off

society, religion

theories of

and nature, when I

lie in

know

that practical objections

the way, in-

surmountable by

me and by my mates ?
when each
life is so

Why

so

talkative in public,

of

my

neighbors can
?

pin

me

to

my

seat

by arguments I cannot refute

simple a game,

Why

pretend that

when

we know how

subtle

and

elusive the Proteus is?

Why think
coop,

to shut

up aU things in your narrow

there are not one or two only,
?

when we know

but ten, twenty, a thousand things, and unlike

Why

fancy that you have

?

all

the truth in your

keeping

There

is

much

to say

on

all sides.

MONTAIGNE
Wlio
there
is

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.

151

shall forbid a wise skepticism, seeing that

no practical question on which any thing

solution can be

more than an approximate

had?

Is

not marriage an open question, when

it is

alleged,

from the beginning of the world, that such as are

in the institution wish to get out,

and such

as are

out wish to get in ?

And

the reply of Socrates, to

wife,

him who asked whether he should choose a

still

remains reasonable, that " whether he should

it."
is

choose one or not, he would repent

the State a question
?

Is not

All society

divided in
loves

opinion on the subject of the State.

it
;

Nobody

great niunbers dislike

it
;

and

suffer conscien-

tious scruples to allegiance

set up, is the fear of

and the only defence

Or, to put any
nearest,

doing worse in disorganizing.

?

Is

it

otherwise with the Church

of the questions which touch

shall the

mankind

young man aim

in trade ?

at

a leading part in law,

in politics,

It

wiU not be pretended

these

that a success in either of

kinds

is

quite
in his

coincident with what

is

best

and inmost

mind.

Shall he then, cutting the stays that hold

him
both

fast to the social state, put out to sea with

no on

guidance but his genius?

sides.

There

is

much

to say

the open question between the present order of " competition " and the friends
of " attractive

Kemember

and associated labor."

The gener-

ous minds embrace the proposition of labor shared

152

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
;

by

all

it is

the only honesty

nothing else

is safe.

It is

from the poor man's hut alone that strength

virtue

and

come

and

yet,

on the other

side, it is

alleged that labor imj)airs the form

spirit of

and breaks the

man, and the laborers cry unanimously,

Culture,

'We
sable

have no thoughts.'
!

how

indispen-

I cannot forgive you the want of accom;

plishments

and yet cidture

will instantly impair

that chiefest beauty of spontaneousness.

is

Excellent

culture for a savage

is

but once

let

him read

in

the book, and he

Plutarch's heroes.

no longer able not

In

to think of

short, since true fortitude

what we know be embarrassed by what we do not know," we ought to secure those advantages which we can

of understanding consists " in not letting

command, and not risk them by clutching after the airy and unattainable. Come, no chimeras Let
!

us go abroad

let

us mix in affairs
"

let

us learn

and get and have and climb.

Men

are a sort of

moving
too

plants, and, like trees, receive a great part

of their nourishment

from the
us

air.

If they

keep

much
;

at

home, they pine."

life
;

Let us have a
for

robust,

manly

let

know what we know,

in the
to

certain

what we have,

let it

be solid and season-

able and our own.

A world

hand

is

worth

two in the bush.

This then

Let us have

do with real men

-='

and women, and not with skipping ghosts.

is

the right ground of the skeptic,

MONTAIGNE;

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.
;

153
all

this of consideration, of self-containing

not at

of unbelief
of

not at

all

of universal denying, nor

universal
;

doubting,

doubting
and
and good.

even that he
profligate jeer-

doubts
ing at

least of all of scoffing

all

that

is

stable

These are no

more
in

his

moods than are those

of religion

and phi-

losophy.
sail,

He

is

the considerer, the prudent, taking

counting stock, husbanding his means, be-

lieving that a

man

has too

he can afford to be his

give ourselves too
conflict,

many enemies than that own foe that we cannot

;

many advantages
and

in this unequal

with

powers so vast
side,

and

unweariable

ranged on one

this little conceited vulneris,

able popinjay that a

man

bobbing up and down

It is a position

into every danger, on the other.

taken up for better defence, as of more safety, and

one that can be maintained

opportunity and range
the rule
is
:

and

it is

one of more

as,

when we

build a house,

to set

it

not too high nor too low, under

the wind, but out of the dirt.

mobility.

The philosophy we want is one of fluxions and The Spartan and Stoic schemes are too
stiff

stark and

for our occasion.

A theory of

Saint

John, and of nonresistance, seems, on the other

hand, too thin and
aerial.

We

want some coat

woven

of elastic steel, stout as the first

and limber

as the second.

We

want a ship in these billows

we

inhabit.

An

angular, dogmatic house would

154

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
many
form

be rent to chips and splinters in this storm of

elements.
of

No,

it

must be
;

tight,

and

fit

to the

man, to

live at all

as a shell

must

dictate the

architecture of a house founded on the sea.

soul of as the

The
a

man must
body of

be the type of our scheme, just

man

is

the type after which

dwelling-house
liarity of

is built.

Adaptiveness

is

the pecuaverages,

human

nature.

We are golden

volitant stabilities, compensated or periodic errors,

houses founded on the sea.

wishes to have a near view of the best

the chief players
;

The wise skeptic game and

;

what

is

best in the planet

;

art

and nature, places and events

but mainly men.

Every thing that

of grace, an

is

excellent in mankind,

arm

of iron, lips of persuasion, a brain

of resources, every one skilful to

a form play and win,

way
of

he will see and judge.

The terms
living of his

of admission to this spectacle are,

that he have a certain solid

and

intelligible

own
skill

some method of answering the

inevitable needs of

human

life
;

proof that he has

played with

and success

that he has evinced

the temper, stoutness and the

range of qualities

which,
entitle

among him to

his contemporaries

and countrymen, For the

to

fellowship

and

trust.

secrets
like-

of life are not

ness.

shown except

to

sympathy and

Men

do not confide themselves

boys, or

coxcombs, or pedants, but to their peers.

Some

MONTAIGNE;
wise limitation, as the

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.
;

155

modern phrase is some condition between the extremes, and having, itself, a
positive quality ;
is

some stark and

sufficient

man, who

not salt or sugar, but sufficiently related to the

world to do justice to Paris or London, and, at the

same time, a vigorous and original thinker,

cities
fit

whom
is

can not overawe, but who uses them,

the

person to occupy this ground of speculation.

These
taigne.

qualities

meet in the character of Monregard which

great, I
egotists,

And

yet, since the personal

I entertain for
will,

Montaigne may be unduly

this

under the shield of

prince

of

offer, as

an apology for electing him as the repre-

sentative of skepticism, a

word or two
this

to explain

how my
gossip.

love began

and grew for

admirable

A single
brary,
after

odd volume of Cotton's translation of

the Essays remained to

me from my

father's

li-

when a boy. It many years, when

I

lay long neglected, until,

I was newly escaped

from

college, I read the book,

and procured the remaindelight

ing volmnes.
in

remember the
it.

and wonder

which I lived with

It

seemed
in

to

me

as if I
life,

had myself written the book,

so sincerely
It
it

some former

spoke to

my

thought and experience.

happened, when in Paris, in 1833, that, in the

cemetery of Pere Lachaise, I came to a tomb of

Auguste Collignon, who died in 1830, aged

sixty-

156

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
monument, "lived
to virtue

eight years, and who, said the

to do right,

and had formed himself

on

the Essays of Montaigne."

Some

years later, I

became acquainted with an accomplished English

poet,

John Sterling

and, in prosecuting

my

cor-

respondence, I found that, from a love of

taigne, he
still

Monaf-

had made a pilgrimage

fifty years,

to his chateau,

standing near Castellan, in Perigord, and,

ter

two hundred and

had copied from

the walls of his library the inscriptions which

Mon-

taigne had written there.

Sterling's, published in the

That Journal of Mr.

Westminster Review,

Mr.

Hazlitt has reprinted in the

Prolegomena

to

his edition of the Essays.

I heard with pleasure

that one

of

the newly-discovered autographs of

in a copy of Florio's trans-

William Shakspeare was

lation of Montaigne.

It is the only

book which we
of Florio,

certainly

know

to

have been in the poet's library.

And, oddly enough, the duplicate copy

which the British

Museum

purchased with a view

of protecting the Shakspeare autograph, (as I

was

informed in the Museum,) turned out to have the

autograph of Ben Jonson in the fly-leaf.

Leigh
he read

Hunt

relates of

Lord Byron,

that

Montaigne was

the only great writer of past times

whom

with avowed satisfaction.

Other coincidences, not

needful to be mentioned here, concurred to

this old

make

Gascon

still

new and immortal

for me.

MONTAIGNE;

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.

157

In 1571, on the death of his father, Montaigne,

then thirty-eight years old, retired from the practice of

law at Bordeaux, and settled himself on his

estate.

Though he had been a man

of pleasure

and sometimes a

courtier, his studious habits

now
life.

grew on him, and he loved the compass, staidness

and independence

of the country gentleman's

He

took up his economy in good earnest, and

made
plain-

his farms yield the most.

Downright and

dealing,
ceive,

and abhorring
In the

to be deceived or to de-

he was esteemed in the country for his sense

civil

and

probity.

wars of the League,

fort,

which converted every house into a

Montaigne

kept his gates open and his house without defence.

All parties freely came and went, his courage and

honor being universally esteemed.

The neighborin these

ing lords and gentry brought jewels and papers to

him

for safe

keeping.

Gibbon reckons,

bigoted times, but two

Henry IV. and Montaigne.

Montaigne
writers.
is

men

of liberality in France,

the frankest and honestest of all

His French freedom runs into grossness

all

but he has anticipated

his

censure by the bounty of

own

confessions.

In his times, books were

written to one sex only, and almost all were written in Latin
;

so that in a humorist a certain na-

kedness of statement was permitted, which our

manners, of a literature addressed equally to both

158
sexes,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
do not allow.

But

tliougli

a biblical plain-

ness couj)led with a most uncanonical levity

may

shut his pages to

offence
is

many

sensitive readers, yet the

superficial.
it
:

He

parades

it:

he makes

the most of

nobody can think or say worse of

him than he
vices
it
;

does.

He

pretends to most of the

and,

if

there be any virtue in him, he says,

got in by stealth.

There

is

no man, in his opin-

ion,

who has

not deserved hanging five or six times

in his

and he pretends no exception

own
too,

behalf.

"Five or
with

six as ridiculous stories,"

he says,
But,

" can be told of me, as of any

all this really

man

living."

superfluous frankness, the opin-

ion of an invincible probity grows into every reader' s

mind.

"

When

I the most strictly

and

relig-

iously confess myself, I find that the best virtue I

have has in

it

some tincture of

vice

and

I,

who

am

as sincere

and perfect a lover

of virtue of that

stamp as any other whatever,

in his purest virtue,
if

am

afraid that Plato,

he had listened and laid his

ear close to himseK, would have heard some jarring

sound of human mixture; but faint and remote

and only

to

be perceived by himself."
at color

Here

is

an impatience and fastidiousness

or pretence of any kind.

He

has been in courts so

long as to have conceived a furious disgust at appearances;

he will indulge himseK with a

;

little

cursing and swearing

he will talk with

sailors

and

MONTAIGNE;
gipsies, use flash

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.
;

159

and

street ballads
;

he has stayed

in-doors
air,

till

he

is

deadly sick

he will to the open

has seen too

though

it

rain bullets.

He

much

of gentlemen of the long robe, until he wishes for

cannibals

and

is

so nervous,

by

factitious life, that

he thinks the more barbarous

is.

He

likes his saddle.

man is, the You may read

better he

theology,

and grammar, and metaphysics elsewhere.

real

What-

ever you get here shall smack of the earth and of

life,

sweet, or smart, or stinging.

to entertain
his

He makes
quite full of

no hesitation
his disease,

you with the records of

is

and

journey to Italy

that matter.

He

took and kept this position of

equilibrium.

Over

atic pair of scales,

it.

name he drew an emblemand wrote Que sgais je f under

his
'

As
will

I look at his effigy opposite the title-page,

I seem to hear him say,

You may
all

play old Poz,

if

you

you may

rail

and exaggerate,

I stand

here for truth, and will not, for

the states and

churches and revenues and personal reputations

of Europe, overstate the dry fact, as I see it; I
will rather

mumble and

prose about what I cer;

tainly know,

my
my

house and barns

;

my

father,
;

my my

wife and

tenants
;

my

old lean bald pate

knives and forks

what meats I eat and what

drinks I prefer, and a hundred straws just as ridiculous,

than
romance.

I will write, with a fine crow-quill,

fine

I like gray days, and

autumn and

160

REPRESENTATIVE MEN,
I

winter weather.

am

gray and autumnal myself,

and think an undress and old shoes that do not pinch my feet, and old friends who do not constrain me,

and plain

topics

where I do not need

brains, the

to

strain myself
able.

and pump

my

most

suit-

Our condition as men is risky and ticklish enough. One cannot be sure of himself and his fortune an hour, but he may be whisked off into
some
pitiable or ridiculous plight.

Why

should I
ballast-

vapor and play the philosopher, instead of

ing, the best I can, this dancing balloon ?
least, I live within comj^ass, keep

So, at
for

myseK ready
life,

action,

and can shoot the gulf

any thing
:

at last with decency.

If there be

farcical in such a

the

blame
door.'

is

not mine

let it lie at fate's

and nature's

The Essays, therefore, are an entertaining soliloquy on every random topic that comes into his
head
;

treating

every thing without ceremony, yet

with masculine sense.

There have been men with

deeper insight; but, one would say, never a

man

with such abundance of thoughts

he

is

never dull,

never insincere, and has the genius to make the

reader care for
all

that he cares for.

of the

The
seems

sincerity

and marrow
I

man

reaches to

his sentences.

know

not anywhere the book that

less written.

It is the

language of conversa-

tion transferred to a book.

Cut these words, and

MONTAIGNE;
they would bleed
;

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.
alive.

161

they are vascular and

it

One

has the same pleasure in

that he feels in listening

to the necessary speech of

men

about their work,

gives

when any unusual circumstance

importance to the dialogue.

momentary
a shower

For blacksmiths and

;

teamsters do not trip in their speech

of bullets.
selves
It is

it is

Cambridge men who correct themat every half sentence, and, refine

and begin again

moreover, will pun, and

too much,

and

swerve from the matter to the expression.

taigne talks with shrewdness,

Mon-

knows the world and

no weakness, no

books and himself, and uses the positive degree

never shrieks, or protests, or prays
convulsion, no superlative
: :

does not wish to

jump

out of his skin, or play any antics, or annihilate

space or time, but

is

stout

and

solid

tastes every

moment of the day; likes pain because it makes him feel himseK and realize things; as we pinch He keeps ourselves to know that we are awake.
the plain
;

he rarely mounts or sinks

likes to feel

solid ground and the stones underneath.

His writcontented,

ing has no enthusiasms^ no aspiration

self-respecting

and keeping the middle of the road.

There
rates.

is

but one exception,

in his love for Socat the age of sixty,

In speaking of him, for once his cheek

flushes

and

his style rises to passion.

Montaigne died of a quinsy,

in 1592.
VOL. rv.

When he came
11

to die he caused the

mass

162
to

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
iii

be celebrated

his

chamber.

At

the age of

thirty-three,

he had been married.

" But," he says,

" might I have had

my own

will, I

would not have

Wisdom herself, if she would have had me but 't is to much purpose to evade it, the common custom and use of life will have it so.
married
:

Most

of

my

actions are guided

by example, not

choice."

In the hour of death, he gave the same

weight to custom.

Que

spais

jef

What

do I

know?
This book of Montaigne the world has endorsed

by translating
circulation

it

into all tongues

it

and printing
;

sev-

enty-five editions of

in

Europe

and

that, too,

somewhat chosen, namely among

court-

iers, soldiers, princes,

men

of the world

and men of

wit and generosity.

Shall

we say

that Llontaigne has spoken wisely,

of

and given the right and permanent expression

the

human mind, on

the conduct of

life ?

We are natural believers.

tion between cause

Truth, or the connecalone interests us.

and

effect,

We

are persuaded that a thread runs through aU

:

things

all

worlds are strung on

it,

as beads

and

men, and events, and life, come to us only because

of that thread
;

they pass and repass only that

we

may know the

direction

and continuity

of that line.

A book or statement

which goes to show that there

MONTAIGNE;
is

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.

163

no

line,

but random and chaos, a calamity out of

it,

nothing, a prosperity and no account of

a hero

born from a

fool,

a fool

from a hero,

dispirits us.

Seen or unseen, we believe the

tie exists.

Talent

makes

counterfeit ties

genius finds the real ones.

We hearken to the man of science, because

ticipate the sequence in natural

we

an-

phenomena which
down.

he uncovers.
preserves
;

We

love whatever affirms, connects,

and

dislike

what

scatters or pulls
is

One man

appears whose nature

:

to all

men's eyes

conserving and constructive

his presence supposes

a well-ordered
stitutions

society, agriculture, trade, large in-

and empire.
to exist

If these did not exist, they

would begin

through his endeavors. Therefeel all this

fore he cheers in

and comforts men, who

him very

readily.

The nonconformist and

the

rebel say all

manner

of unanswerable things against

the existing republic, but discover to our sense no

plan of house or state of their own.

Therefore,

though the town and

state

and way

of living,

which

our counsellor contemplated, might be a very modest or

musty prosperity, yet men rightly go for

him, and reject the reformer so long as he comes

only with axe and crowbar.

But though we are natural conservers and

ationists,

caus-

and

reject a sour,

dumpish

unbelief, the

skeptical class, which

Montaigne represents, have

at

reason,

and every man,

some time, belongs

to it

164

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
will pass

Every superior mind

of equilibration,

I should
of bigots

through this domain

rather say, will

know

how
tion

to avail himself of the checks

and balances in

nature, as a natural

weapon against the exaggeraand blockheads.

and formalism
is

Skepticism

the attitude assumed

by the

stu-

dent in relation to the particulars which society

adores, but which he sees to be reverend only in
their tendency

and
is

spirit.

The ground occupied

Soci-

by the skeptic

the vestibule of the temple.

ety does not like to have any breath of question

blown on the existing

order.
is

But the

interroga-

tion of custom at all points

an inevitable stage

in the growth of every superior mind,

and

is

the

evidence of

its

perception of the flowing power

which remains

itself in all

changes.
find
itself

The

superior

mind

will

equally at
projects

odds with the

evils of society

and with the

that are offered to relieve them.

is

The wise

skeptic

a bad citizen

no conservative, he
he

sees the sel-

fishness of property
tions.

and the drowsiness

fit

of institu-

But neither

is

to

work with any demo;

cratic party that ever

was constituted

for parties

wish every one committed, and he penetrates the

popular patriotism.
" Soul's

His
of Sir

politics are those of the

Errand "

Walter Kaleigh
is

or of
is

Krishna, in the Bhagavat, " There

none who

worthy of

my

love or hatred

" whilst he sentences

MONTAIGNE
law, physic, divinity,
is

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.

165

commerce and custom.

is

He
he
is

a reformer

yet he

no better member of the

It turns out that

philanthropic association.

not the champion of the operative, the pauper, the

prisoner, the slave.
life in this

It stands in his

mind

that our

world

is

not of quite so easy interpreta=

say.

tion as churches

and school-books

He

does

not wish to take ground against these benevolences,

to play the part

of devil's attorney,

and blazon

every doubt and sneer that darkens the sun for

him.
I

But he

says.

There are doubts.

occasion,

mean

to use the

and celebrate the

calendar-day of our Saint Michel de Montaigne, by

counting and describing these doubts or negations.

I wish to ferret them out of their holes and sun

them a
lic

little.

We must

do with them as the police

to the pub-

do with old rogues, who are shown up

at the marshal's office.

They

will never be so

formidable when once they have been identified

and

registered.

But

mean honestly by them,

to

that justice shall be done to their terrors.

I shall

not take Sunday objections,

made up on purpose

be put down.

I shall take the worst I can find,

whether I can dispose of them or they of me.

I do not press the skepticism of the materialists

I 'T

know
is

the quadruped opinion will not prevail.

of

no importance what bats and oxen think.

dangerous symptom I report
is,

The

first

the levity

166
of intellect
;

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
as
if
it

were fatal to earnestness to

is

know much.
can not know.
light mockers.

Knowledge

the knowing that

the
is

we

The

dull pray ;

geniuses are

How
!

respectable

earnestness on
it.

every platform
Carlo,

but intellect

kills

Nay, San

my

subtle

and admirable

friend, one of the

all direct as-

most penetrating of men, finds that

cension, even of lofty piety, leads to this ghastly

insight

and sends back the votary orphaned.

My
;

astonishing
saints

San Carlo thought the lawgivers and infected. They found the ark empty saw,
tell
;

and would not

dear fellows,
detection

and

tried to choke off their ap'

proaching followers, by saying,

is

Action, action,
as

my
this

for

you

'

Bad
this

was
in

to

me

by San Carlo,
bride, there

frost
still

July, this

blow from a

was

a worse, namely

the cloy or satiety of the saints.

vision, ere they

In the mount of

have yet risen from their knees,

discover that this our

they say,
beatitude

'

We

is

partial

and deformed

homage and we must fly

Intellect, to

for relief to the suspected

and reviled

the

Understanding, the
talent.'

Mephistopheles, to the

gymnastics of

This

is

hobgoblin the

first

and, though

it

has

been the subject of much elegy in our nineteenth

century, from Byron, Goethe
less

and other poets

distinguished

of

fame, not to mention

vate observers,

I confess

many
it

jDri-

is

not very affecting

MONTAIGNE;
to

OR,
for

THE SKEPTIC,
it

167

my

imagination
of

seems to concern the

shattering

baby - houses and crockery - shops.

What

flutters the

Church

of

Rome, or

of England,

or of Geneva, or of Boston,

may

yet be very far I think that

;

from touching any principle of

faith.

the intellect and moral sentiment are unanimous

and that though philosophy extirpates bugbears, yet

it

supplies the natural checks of vice,

and polarity to
is,

the soul.

I think that the wiser a

man

the

more

stupendous he finds the natural and moral econ-

omy, and

lifts
is

himself to a more absolute reliance.

There
nought

the power of moods, each setting at

all

but

its

own

tissue of facts

and

beliefs.

There

is

the power of complexions, obviously modi-

fying the dispositions and sentiments.

The
;

beliefs

and unbeliefs appear

as each

to

be structural

and

as soon

man

attains the poise

and vivacity which

allow the whole machinery to play, he will not

need extreme examples, but will rapidly alternate

all

opinions in his

own

life.

Our

life

is

March

weather, savage and serene in one hour.

We

go

forth austere, dedicated, believing in the iron links

of Destiny,

and

will not turn

on our heel

to save

our

life

but a book, or a bust, or only the sound

of a name, shoots a spark through the nerves,

and
all

we suddenly
is

believe in will
;

my

finger-ring shall
;

be the seal of Solomon

fate is for imbeciles

possible to the resolved mind.

Presently a

new

168

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
new turn
its

experience gives a

to our thoughts
;

com-

mon

sense resumes
all, is

tyranny

we

say,

'

Well, the

army, after
poetry
:

the gate to fame, manners and

and, look you,

on

the whole, selfishness

plants best, prunes best,

makes the best commerce

oj)inions of a

and the best

citizen.'

Are the

man

on right and wrong, on fate and causation,

at the Is his

mercy of a broken
belief in

sleep or

an indigestion

God and Duty no deeper than a stomach evidence ? And what guaranty for the permanence
of his opinions ?

I like not the

French

celerity,

is

a new Church and State once a week.

the second negation
;

This

and I
it

shall let it pass

for

what

it will.

As

far as
it

asserts rotation of states

its

of mind, I suppose

suggests

own remedy,

namely in the record of larger

the

periods.

What

is

mean

of

many

states

of all the states ?

Does
is

the general voice of ages affirm any principle, or

no community of sentiment discoverable in distant

times and places
?

And when
it

it

shows the power

of self-interest, I accept that as part of the divine

law and must reconcile

I can.

with aspiration the best

The word

Fate, or Destiny, expresses the sense

of mankind, in all ages, that the laws of the world

do not always befriend, but often hurt and crush

us.

Fate, in the shape of

over us like grass.

We

Kinde or nature, grows paint Time with a scythe

MONTAIGNE;
have too
rocity

OR,
;

THE SKEPTIC.
and Destiny,
deaf.

169

Love and Fortune, blind

little

We
we

power of resistance against

this fe-

which champs us up.

What

front can

make

against these unavoidable, victorious, malefi?

cent forces
of Kace, in

What

can I do against the influence

my

history ?

"What can I do against

;

hereditary and constitutional habits

ula,

against scrof-

lymph, impotence? against climate, against

barbarism, in

my
will,

country?

I can reason

down
:

or

deny every thing, except

he must and
able.

this perpetual Belly

feed

and I cannot make him

respect-

But the main

resistance

which the affirmative

all others, is in

impulse finds, and one including

the doctrine of the Illusionists.
ful

There

is

a painprac-

rumor in

circulation that

we have been

tised

upon

in all the principal performances of life,

and

free agency is the emptiest name.

air,

W^e have
with food,

been sopped and drugged with the

with woman, with children, with sciences, with

events,
us.

which leave us exactly where they found

The mathematics, 't is complained, leave the mind where they find it so do all sciences and so do all events and actions. I find a man who has passed through aU the sciences, the churl he was
:

and, through all the

cial,

offices,

learned, civil and so-

can detect the child.

We

are not the less

170

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
In fact we

necessitated to dedicate life to them.

may come
and

to accept

it

as the fixed rule

and theory

of our state of education, that

God

is

a substance,

The eastern sages his method is illusion. owned the goddess Yoganidra, the great illusory energy of Vishnu, by whom, as utter ignorance, the
whole world
is

beguiled.
it

Or shaU
of life
is

I state

thus ?

The
Law,
is

astonishment

the absence of any appearance of recon-

ciliation

between the theory and practice of

reality, the

life.

Reason, the prized

apprehended,

now and

then, for a serene

and profound moment

then lost for months

amidst the hubbub of cares and works which have

no direct bearing on
lost again.
fifty years,

it

is

or years, and again found for an interval, to be

If

we compute

it

in time,

we may,

in

have half a dozen reasonable hours.

But what are these cares and works the better? A method in the world we do not see, but this parallelism of great and little, which never react on
each other, nor discover the smallest tendency to
converge.
ings,

Experiences, fortunes, governings, readare

writings,

nothing to the purpose

into the

as

when a man comes

room it does not appear whether he has been fed on yams or buffalo, he has contrived to get so much bone and fibre

as he wants, out of rice or out of snow.

the disproportion between the sky of

So vast is law and the

MONTAIGNE;

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.
it,

171

pismire of performance under

is

that whether he

man

of worth or a sot

is

not so great a matter

as

we

say.

Shall I add, as one juggle of this en-

chantment, the stunning non-intercourse law which

makes co-operation impossible ? The young spirit pants to enter society. But all the ways of culture
and greatness lead
to solitary imprisonment.

He

has been often baulked.

He

did not expect a symvillage,

pathy with his thought from the

but he

went with

it

to the chosen
it,

and

intelligent,

and

found no entertainment for

hension, distaste

but mere misappre-

and

scoffing.
;

Men

are strangely

mistimed and misapplied

each
is

and the excellence of

an inflamed individualism which separates

him more.
There are
these,

and more than these

diseases of

thought, which our ordinary teachers do not at-

tempt to remove.

Now
lie

shall we, because a

good

nature inclines us to virtue's side, say, There are

no doubts,

and

for the right ?

Is life to be
?

led in a brave or in a cowardly

manner

and

is

not the satisfaction of the doubts essential to all

manliness ?
to that

Is the
is

name

of virtue to be a barrier

which

virtue?

Can you

not believe that

find small

man

of earnest
tea,

and burly habit may

good in

essays

and catechism, and want a

doubt and

rougher instruction, want men, labor, trade, farming, war, himger, plenty, love, hatred,

172
terror to

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
make
he
things plain to him; and has he

not a right to insist on being convinced in his

own

way ?
pains.

When

is

convinced, he will be worth the

Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of

the soul

unbelief, in denying them.

Some minds
pro-

are incapable of skepticism.

The doubts they

fess to entertain are rather a civility or

accommo-

dation to the

common

discourse of their company.

They may

well give themselves leave to speculate,

for they are secure of a return.

Once admitted
on the other

to

the heaven of thought, they see no relapse into

night, but infinite invitation
side.

Heaven
are to

is

within heaven, and sky over sky, and

they are encompassed with divinities.

Others there
it

whom

the heaven

is

brass,

and

shuts

down

to the surface of the earth.

It is a question of
less

temperament, or of more or
nature.

immersion in
reflex or
in-

The

last class
;

must needs have a

realities,

parasite faith
stinctive
realities.

not a sight of

but an

reliance

on the seers and believers of

The manners and thoughts of believers astonish them and convince them that these have But seen something which is hid from themselves.
their sensual habit
position, whilst

would

fix the believer to his last

;

he as inevitably advances and pres-

ently the unbeliever, for love of belief, burns the

believer.

MONTAIGNE;

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.
infidels,

173
imof

Great believers are always reckoned

practicable, fantastic, atheistic,

and

really

men

no account.
to

The

spiritualist finds himself driven

express his faith by a series of skepticisms.

Charitable souls come with their projects and ask

his co-operation.

How

can he hesitate

It is the

rule of

mere comity and courtesy

to turn

to agree

where

you can, and

auspicious,
is

your sentence with something

sinister.

and not freezing and

'

But he

forced to say,
:

O, these things
?

will

be as they

must be
griefs

what can you do

see growing.
;

These particular
fruit of such

and crimes are the foliage and

trees as

we

It is vain to
it off, it

complain of

the leaf or the berry

just as

cut

will bear another

bad.

You must
generosities

begin your cure lower

of the

down.'

The

day prove an
people's ques;

intractable element for him.

tions are not his
;

The

their

methods are not his

is

and

against all the dictates of good nature he

to say he has

driven

no pleasure in them.

Even

the doctrines dear to the hope of man, of

the divine Providence and of the immortality of the

sold, his

neighbors can not put the statement so

it.

that he shall affirm

faith,

But he denies out

of

more

and not

less.

He

denies out of honesty.

He

had rather stand charged with the imbecility of

skepticism, than with untruth.

I believe, he says,
;

in the moral design of the universe

it

exists hos-

174

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
of
:

pitably for the weal

souls

but your dogmas

I make believe seem to me caricatures them? Will any say, This is cold and infidel? The wise and magnanimous will not say so. They

why should

will

exult in his far-sighted good-will that can

tradijot of

abandon to the adversary all the ground of tion and common belief, without losing a
strength.
It sees to the

end of

all transgression.

George Fox
light

saw that there v/as " an ocean of dark;

ness and death

but withal an

infinite

ocean of

and love which flowed over that of darkfinal solution in

ness."

The
in the

which skepticism

is lost, is
its

moral sentiment, which never

All moods

forfeits

supremacy.

may be

safely tried,
:

and
one.

their weight allowed to all objections

the moral
as

sentiment as easily outweighs them

all,

any

This

is

the drop which balances the sea.

I play

with the miscellany of facts, and take those superficial

views which

we

call skepticism

but I

know
of

that they will presently appear to

me

in that order

which makes skepticism impossible.

thought must feel the thought that
the universe
late
;

A
is

man

parent of

that the masses of nature do undu-

and

flow.
life

This faith avails to the whole emergency of

and

objects.

The world

is

saturated with deity

and with law.

He

is

content with just and unjust,

MONTAIGNE;

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.

175

with sots and fools, with the triumph of folly and

fraud.

He

can behold with serenity the yawning

gulf between the ambition of

of performance, between the

man and

his

power
of

demand and supply

all souls.

power, which makes the tragedy of

Charles Fourier announced that " the attractions

of

man

are proportioned to his destinies

its

" in other
satisfac-

words, that every desire predicts

tion.

own

Yet
;

all

experience exhibits the reverse of

is

this

the incompetency of power

the universal

grief of

young and ardent minds.

They accuse
It

the divine providence of a certain parsimony.

has shown the heaven and earth to every child

and

filled

him with a
;

desire for the whole

a desire
filled

raging, infinite

a hunger, as of space to be

with planets
souls.

a cry of famine, as of devils for

Then

for the satisfaction,

to each

man

is

administered a single drop, a bead of dew of vital

power, per day^

a cup
life

as large as space, in
it.

and one
in
eat the

drop of the water of

the

Each man woke

spirit for action

morning with an appetite that could

;

solar system like a cake

and

passion without bounds

the morning star
;

he could lay his hand on

he could try conclusions with

;

gravitation or chemistry
to

but,

on the

first

motion
gave

prove his strength,

hands,

feet, senses,

way and would

not serve him.

He was

an emperor

deserted by his states, and left to whistle by him-


176
self,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
or thrust into a
:

mob

of emperors, all whist-

ling

and

still

the sirens sang, "

The

attractions are

proj)ortioned to the destinies."

in the heart of each

In every house,
of each boy, in the

maiden and

soul of the soaring saint, this

chasm

is

found,

between the largest promise of ideal power, and

the shabby experience.

The expansive nature

cor, elastic, not to
self
is

of truth comes to our suc-

be surrounded.

Man
The

helps him-

by

larger generalizations.
;

lesson of life

practically to generalize

to believe

what the
;

years and the centuries say, against the hours

resist the

to

usurpation of particulars; to penetrate

to their catholic sense.

Things seem to say one

thing,

and say the

;

reverse.
is

The appearance

is

im-

moral

the result
to

moral.

Things seem to tend

downward,

justify

despondency, to
;

promote

rogues, to defeat the just

and by knaves as by
carried forward.

martyrs the just cause

is

Al-

though knaves win in every

political struggle, al-

though society seems to be delivered over from the

hands of one

set of criminals into the

hands of ana train

other set of criminals, as fast as the government

is

changed, and the march of civilization

is

of felonies,

yet, general
see,

ends are somehow an-

swered.

We

now, events forced on which

a good swimmer, and storms

seem

to retard or retrograde the civility of ages.

is

But the world-spirit

MONTAIGNE;
and

OR,

THE SKEPTIC.
He

177

and waves cannot drown him.

at laws
:

snaps his finger

so,

throughout history, heaven seems

to affect low

and poor means.

Through the years

agents, through

and the
toys

centuries, through

evil

and atoms, a great and beneficent tendency

to look for the

irresistibly streams.

Let a man learn

permanent in

the mutable and fleeting ; let

him
let

learn to bear the

disappearance of things he was wont to reverence

without losing his reverence

is

here, not to

work but

to

him learn that he be worked upon and

;
;

that,

though abyss open under abyss, and opinion

displace opinion, all are at last contained in the

Eternal Cause
" If
VOL. rv.

my bark
12

sink,

't is

to another sea."

SHAKSPEAEE; OE, THE POET.

V.

SHAKSPEARE;

OR,

THE POET.

Geeat men
originality
der, their

are

more distinguished by range

originality.

and extent than by

If

we
;

require the

which consists

in weaving, like a spi-

web from their own bowels in finding clay and making bricks and building the house no Nor does valuable origigreat men are original. nality consist in unlikeness to other men. The hero
;

is

in the press of knights

and the thick of events

their de-

and seeing what men want and sharing

sire,

he adds the needful length of sight and of

arm, to come at the desired point.

genius
is

The

greatest
is

the most indebted man.

poet

no

rattle-brain, saying

what comes uppermost, and, be-

cause he says every thing, saying at last something

good; but a heart in unison with his time and

country.
tic in his

There

is

nothing whimsical and fantas-

production, but sweet and sad earnest,

freighted with the weightiest convictions and point-

ed with the most determined aim which any

or class

man

knows

of in his times.

182

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
of our life
is

The Genius
and
ius.

jealous of individuals,

will not have any individual great, except

through the general.

There

is

no choice to gengo

A great

man
say,
'

does not wake up on some fine

I

morning and

am

full of life, I will

:

to

sea and find an Antarctic continent

to-day I will

square the circle

I will ransack botany and find

:

a new food for man

I have a

my mind
and

I foresee a

new architecture in no, new mechanic power

: '

but he finds himself in the river of the thoughts

events, forced

onward by the

ideas

and neces-

sities of his

contemporaries.

He

stands where all

all

the eyes of

men

look one way, and their hands

point in the direction in which he should go.

The

Church has reared him amidst

and he and
carries out the advice

rites

and pomps,

which her music gave

him, and builds a cathedral needed by her chants

processions.

He

finds a

war raging

it

edu-

cates him,

by trumpet,

in barracks,

and he betters

the instruction.

He

finds

two counties groping to

bring coal, or

flour, or fish,

from the place of pro-

duction to the place of consumption, and he hits on

a railroad.
collected,

and
in.

Every master has found his materials his power lay in his sympathy with

his

people and in his love of the materials he

wrought
All

What an economy

of

power

and
life

what a compensation for the shortness of

is

done to his hand.

The world has brought

SHAKSPEARE;
him
tlius

OR,

THE POET.
The human

183
race has

far on his way.

gone out before him, sunk the

lows and bridged the rivers.
artisans,

hills, filled

the hol-

women,

all

Men, nations, poets, have worked for him, and he

Choose any other thing, do for
first

enters into their labors.

out of the line of tendency, out of the national feel-

ing and history, and he woidd have

himself
:

all to

his

powers would be expended in the

preparations.

Great genial power, one would

;

al-

most

say, consists in not being original at all

;

in

being altogether receptive

all,

in letting the world

do

and suffering the

spirit of the

hour to pass un-

obstructed through the mind.

Shakspeare's youth
lish people

fell in

a time when the Eng-

were importunate for dramatic enter-

tainments.
cal

The

court took offence easily at politi-

allusions

and

attempted to suppress

them.

The

Puritans, a growing and energetic party,

and

the religious

among

the Anglican church, would the people wanted them.

suppress them.
Inn-yards,

But

houses without roofs, and extempora^

neous enclosures at country fairs were the ready

theatres of
strolling

players.

The people had

tasted this

new

joy

and, as

suppress newspapers now,

est party,

neither
epic,

we could not hope to no, not by the strong-

then could king, prelate, or

puritan, alone or united, suppress an organ which

Was ballad,

newspaper, caucus, lecture. Punch

184

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
library, at
tlie

and

same time.
all

Probably king,
a national inter-

prelate
it.

and puritan,

found their own account in

all causes,

It

est,

by no means conspicuous,
it

bad become, by

so that

some great
it

scholar would have thought of treating

in

an
a

English history,
because

but not a whit

best proof of

less considerable

was cheap and of no account,

like

baker's-shop.

The

its vitality is

the
this

crowd of
field;

v/riters

which suddenly broke into

Middleton,

Kyd, Marlow, Greene, Jonson, Chapman,

Peele,

Dekker, Webster, Heywood,

Ford, Massinger, Beaumont and Fletcher.

The
lic

secure possession,
is
it.

by the

stage, of the pub-

mind,

of the first importance to the poet

who
In

works for

He

loses

no time in

idle experiments.

Here

is

audience and exjjectation prepared.

is

the case of Shakspeare there

much more.

At

the time

when he

left

Stratford and went up to

of all dates

London, a great body of stage-plays

and writers existed

in manuscript

and were in
is

turn produced on the boards.

Here

the Tale of

Troy, which the audience wiU bear hearing some

part
of,

every week

the Death of Julius Caesar,

and other
tire of
;

stories out of Plutarch,

full of

which they never

to the royal

a shelf

English history, from the

chronicles of Brut

and Arthur, down

eagerly
;

Henries, which

men hear

and a

string of

doleful tragedies,

merry Italian

tales

and Spanish

SHAKSPEARE
voyages, which all the

OR,

THE POET.
'prentices

185
know.

London

All the mass has been treated, with more or less

skill,

by every playwright, and the prompter has the

soiled

and tattered manuscripts.

It is

longer possible to say

who

\\Tote

them

first.

now no They

have been the property of the Theatre so long, and

so

many

rising geniuses have enlarged or altered

them, inserting a speech or a whole scene, or adding a song, that no

right in this

man

can any longer claim copyHappily, no

work of numbers.

man

wishes

to.

They

are not yet desired in that way.

We have few readers, many spectators

They had
best lie where they are.

and hearers.

Shakspeare, in

common with

his comrades, esstock, in

teemed the mass of old plays waste

which
the
ex-

any experiment could be freely

prestige which hedges about a
isted,

tried.

Had

modern tragedy

nothing could have been done.

The rude

warm
play,

blood of the living England circulated in the

as
in
street-ballads,

and gave body which

he wanted to his airy and majestic fancy.

The

poet needs a ground in popular tradition on which

he

may

work, and which, again,

may

restrain his

art within the

due temperance.

It holds

him

to

the people, supplies a foundation for his edifice,

and

in furnishing so

much work done

and
In

to his hand,

leaves

him

at leisure

in full strength for the

shoi-t,

audacities of his imagination.

the poet

186

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
Sculpture in Egypt and in Greece grew up
It

owes to ids legend what sculpture owed to the temple.

in subordination to architecture.

was the ornaa rude relief

ment

of the

temple wall

at

first

carved on pediments, then the relief became bolder

and a head or arm was projected from the wall

the groups being
still

arranged with reference to

the building, which serves also as a frame to hold

the figures
of style
;

and when

at last the greatest

freedom

and treatment was reached, the prevailing

still

genius of architecture

enforced a certain calm-

ness and continence in the statue.

statue was

As

soon as the

begun for

itself,

and with no reference

began
to decline
:

to the temple or palace, the art

freak, extravagance

and exhibition took the place

This balance-wheel, which
irri-

of the old temperance.

the sculptor found in architecture, the perilous

tability of poetic talent

found in the accumulated

al-

dramatic materials to which the people were

ready wonted, and which had a certain excellence

which

no

single

genius, however

extraordinary,

could hope to create.

In point of fact

it

appears that Shakspeare did

owe debts
ness

in all directions,

and was able

to use

whatever he found; and the amount of indebted-

may

be inferred from Malone's laborious comYI., in which, " out of 6,043

putations in regard to the First, Second and Third

parts of

Henry

lines,

SHAKSPEARE;

OR,

THE POET.

187

1,771 were written by some author preceding Sliakspeare, 2,373

by him, on the foundation laid by his

predecessors,

and 1,899 were

entirely his

own."

And

the proceeding investigation hardly leaves a

single

drama
is

of his absolute invention.

Malone's

sentence

an important piece of external history.

In Henry YIII. I think I see plainly the cropping

out of the original rock on which his

own
ear.

finer

stratum was

laid.

The

first

play was written by a

I can

superior, thoughtful

man, with a vicious

mark

his lines,

and know well

their cadence.

See

Wolsey's soliloquy, and the following scene with

Cromwell, where instead of the metre of Shakspeare,

whose secret
the rhythm,

is

that the thought constructs the tune,

so that reading for the sense will best bring out

here the

lines are constructed

on a

given tmie, and the verse has even a trace of pulpit

eloquence.

But the play contains through

all its

length unmistakable traits of Shakspeare's hand,

and some passages, as the account

are like autographs.
to

of the coronation,

What
is

is

odd, the compliment

Queen Elizabeth Shakspeare knew

in the bad rhythm.

that tradition supplies a better

If he lost

fable than
of design,

any invention can.

any credit

he augmented his resources; and, at

that day, our petulant

demand

for originality

was

not so

much

pressed.

There was no

literature for

the million.

The

universal reading,

the

cheap

188
press,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
were unknown.

great poet

who appears
Every
it is

in illiterate times, absorbs into bis sphere all the

light

which

is

any where radiating.

intel-

lectual jewel, every flower of sentiment

office to

his fine

bring to his people

equally with

and he comes
his invention.

to value

his

memory

He

is

therefore

little solicitous

whence his thoughts have

been derived; whether through translation, whether

through tradition, whether by travel in distant countries,

whether by inspiration

from whatever source,

Other men say

they are equally welcome to his uncritical audience.

Nay, he borrows very near home.

wise things as well as he; only they say a good

many

foolish things,

and do not know when they

have spoken wisely.

true stone, and puts
finds
it.
;

He knows
it

the sparkle of the

in high place, wherever he

Such

is

the happy position of

Homer

per-

haps

of Chaucer, of Saadi.

They

felt that all

wit

was

their wit.

And

they are librarians and his-

toriographers, as well as poets.

Each romancer was

tales of the

heir and dispenser of all the

world,

hundred

" Presenting Thebes' and Pelops' line

And

the tale of Troy divine."

is

The

influence of Chaucer
;

conspicuous in

all

our

early literature

and more recently not only Pope

to him, but, in the

and Dryden have been beholden

whole society of English writers, a large unacknowl

SHAKSPEARE;
edged debt
is

OR,

THE POET.

189

easily traced.

the opidence which feeds so

One is charmed with many pensioners. But

Chaucer,
it

Chaucer

is

a huge borrower.

seems,

drew

continually, through
di Colonna,

Lydgate and Caxton,

from Guido
the Trojan

whose Latin romance of

war was

in turn a compilation
Statins.

from

Dares Phrygius, Ovid and

the

Then Petrarch,
only judicious

Boccaccio and the Provencjal poets are his benefactors

:

Romaunt

of the

Rose

is

translation

from William of Lorris and John of

Meung
bino
:

Troilus and Creseide, from LoUius of Ur-

Marie

The Cock and the Fox, from the Lais of The House of Fame, from the French or Italian and poor Gower he uses as if he were only
: :

a brick-kiln or stone-quarry out of which to build

his house.

He

steals

by

this apology,

that
it

what
to

he takes has no worth where he finds

greatest where he leaves
it.

and the
be

It has

come

practically a sort of rule in literature, that a

man

having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled thenceforth to steal

from the writis

ings of others at discretion.

ty of

Thought
it

the proper-

him who can

entertain

and of him who can

but as soon as we

adequately place

it.

A certain awkwardness marks

;

the use of borrowed thoughts

have learned what to do with them they become our

own.

Thus

all originality is relative.

Every thinker

is

190
retrospective.
ture, at

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
The learned member
at

of

tlie legisla-

Westminster or

Washington, speaks and

the constituency, and by which the senator is
;

votes for thousands.

Show us

now made aware

the

invisible channels

of their wishes

the crowd of practical

and knowing men, who, by correspondence or conversation, are feeding him with evidence, anecdotes
and estimates, and
it

will bereave his fine attitude

and

resistance of something of their impressiveness.

As

Sir Kobert Peel

and Mr. Webster

think, for thousands
all

vote,
;

so so

Locke and Rousseau

there

and

were fountains

around Homer, Menu,

Saadi, or Milton, from which they drew; friends,

lovers, books, traditions, proverbs,

all

perished

which,
peal
is

if

seen,

would go

to

reduce the wonder.

Did the bard speak with authority ? Did he feel himself overmatched by any companion ? The apto the consciousness of the writer.

Is there

at last in his breast a Delphi whereof to ask con-

cerning any thought or thing, whether

so,

it

be verily

yea or nay ? and to have answer, and to rely on

All the debts which such a

that ?

man

could con-

tract to other wit would never disturb his conscious-

ness of originality

for the ministrations of books

to that

and
most

of other

minds are a whiff of smoke

private reality with

which he has conversed.

It is easy to see that

what

is

best written ot

done by genius in the world, was no man's work,

SHAKSPEARE;

OR,

THE POET.

191

but came by wide social labor, when a thousand

wrought like one, sharing the same impidse.

Our
But
;

EngKsh Bible
it

is

a wonderful

specimen of the

strength and music of the English language.

was not made by one man, or at one time

but

centuries

and churches brought

it

to perfection.

There never was a time when there was not some

translation existing.

The Liturgy, admired

is

for its

energy and pathos,

an anthology of the piety of

ages and nations, a translation of the prayers and

forms of the Catholic church,

too, in

these
all

collected,

long periods, from the prayers and medita-

tions of every saint

and sacred writer

over the

world.

Grotius makes the like remark in respect

to the Lord's Prayer, that the single clauses of

which

it

is

composed were already in use in the

forms.

time of Christ, in the Eabbinical

He
lan-

picked out the grains of gold.

The nervous

guage of the
of our courts

Common Law,

the impressive forms

and the precision and substantial

truth of the legal distinctions, are the contribution

of all the sharp-sighted, strong-minded

men who
its

have lived in the countries where these laws govern.

The

translation of Plutarch gets

translation

excel-

lence

by being

on translation.

There
All the

never was a time when there was none.

truly idiomatic
all

and national phrases are kept, and an^ thrown away.

others successively picked out

192

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
like tlie

Something

same process had gone

of

on, long

before, with the

originals

these

books.

The
Ili-

world takes

liberties

with world -books.

Vedas,

-^sop's Fables, Pilpay, Arabian Nights, Cid,

ad,

Robin Hood, Scottish Minstrelsy, are not the

of single

work

men.

In the composition of such

works the time thinks, the market thinks, the mason, the carpenter, the merchant, the farmer, the

fop, all think for us.

Every book supplies

;

its

time

with one good word

every municipal law, every

trade, every folly of the

olic genius

day

and the generic cathstands with the

who

is

not afraid or ashamed to owe his

all,

originality to the originality of

next age as the recorder and embodiment of his

own.

We have to thank the

researches of antiquaries,

and the Shakspeare Society, for ascertaining the

steps of the English drama,

from the Mysteries

celebrated in churches and

final

by churchmen, and the

detachment from the church, and the comple-

tion of secular plays,

from Ferrex and Porrex, and

Gammer
altered,

Gurton's Needle,

down

to the possession

of the stage

by the very pieces which Shakspeare remodelled and finally made his own.
have
left

Elated with success and piqued by the growing

interest of the problem, they
stall

no book-

unsearched, no chest in a garret unopened,

of old yellow

no

file

accounts to decompose in

SHAKSPEARE;
damp and worms,
so

OR,

THE POET.

193
dis-

keen was the hope to

cover whether the boy Shakspeare poached or not,

whether he held horses at the theatre door, whether

he kept school, and
second-best bed to

why he

left in his will

only his

Ann Hathaway,

his wife.

There
which

is

somewhat touching

in the

madness with

which the passing age mischooses the object on

all

candles shine and all eyes are turned

it

the care with which

registers every trifle touch-

ing Queen Elizabeth and

King James, and

the

Essexes, Leicesters, Burleighs and Buckinghams;

and

lets

pass without a single valuable note the

founder of another dynasty, which alone will cause

the

Tudor dynasty
carries the

to be

remembered,
in

the

man

who
tion

Saxon race

him by the

inspira-

which feeds him, and on whose thoughts the

foremost people of the world are

to

now for some

;

ages

be nourished, and minds to receive this and not

another bias.

popular player

nobody
;

sus-

pected he was the poet of the hiunan race

secret

and the
intel-

was kept as

faithfully

from poets and

lectual

men

as

from courtiers and frivolous people.

Bacon, who took the inventory of the

human

un-

derstanding for his times, never mentioned his

name.

Ben Jonson, though we have

first

strained his
suspi-

few words of regard and panegyric, had no

cion of the elastic fame whose

vibrations he

was attempting.
VOL. IV.
13

He

no doubt thought the praise

194

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

he has conceded to him generous, and esteemed

himself, out of all question, the better poet of the

two.
If
it

need wit to know

wit, according to the prov-

erb, Shakspeare's time should

be capable of recog-

nizing

it.

Sir

Henry Wotton was born four years

and died twenty-three years
after

after Shakspeare,

him

and I

find,

among

his correspondents
:

and

acquaintances,

the

following persons

Theodore

Beza, Isaac

Casaubon, Sir

Philip

Sidney, the

Earl of Essex, Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Ealeigh,

John Milton, Sir Henry Vane, Isaac Walton, Dr.

Donne, Abraham
Cotton,

Cowley,

Bellarmine,

Charles

John Pym, John Hales, Kepler,

exists

Yieta, Al;

bericus Gentilis, Paul Sarpi, Arminius

of

with

all

whom

some

token of his

having commuothers

nicated, without

enumerating

many

whom

doubtless he saw,

Shakspeare,

Spenser, Jonson,

Beaumont, Massinger, the two Herberts, Marlow,

great

Chapman and the rest. Since the constellation men who appeared in Greece in the time
Pericles, there was never any such society
;

of
of

yet
head

their genius failed

them

to find out the best

in the universe.
ble.

Our

poet's

mask was impenetra-

You cannot see the mountain near. It took century to make it suspected and not until two
;

centuries

had passed,

after his death, did

any

criti'

cism which

we think adequate begin

to appear.

It

SHAKSPEARE
now
for he

OR,

THE POET.
German

195

was not possible to write the history of Shakspeare

till
;

is

the father of

literature

it

was with the introduction of Shakspeare into

translation of his

German, by Lessing, and the

burst of

works by Wieland and Schlegel, that the rapid

German
It

literature

was most intimately

a sort of living

connected.
tury,

was not

until the nineteenth cenis

whose speculative genius

Hamlet, that the tragedy of Hamlet could find

such wondering readers.

Now,

literature, philoso-

phy and thought, are Shakspearized.

is

His mind

the horizon beyond which, at present,

see.

we do
crit-

not

Our ears are educated to music by his

Coleridge and Goethe are the only
convictions with
is

rhythm.
ics

who have expressed our

fidelity
:

any

adequate

but there

in all cultivated

minds a
period.

silent appreciation of his superlative

power

and beauty, which,

like Christianity, qualifies the

The Shakspeare Society have inquired

for

in all di-

rections, advertised the missing facts, offered

money

any information that

will lead to proof,

and

with what result ?

Beside some important

illustra-

tion of the history of the

English stage, to which I

have

adverted,

they have gleaned a few facts

touching the property, and dealings in regard to

property, of the poet.
to

It appears that

from year

year he owned a larger share in the Blackfriars'

196
Theatre
:

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
its
:

wardrobe and other appurtenances

vil;

were his

that he bought an estate in his native

lage with his earnings as writer and shareholder

that he lived in the best house in Stratford
;

was

intrusted
in

by

his neighbors with their commissions

London, as

of

borrowing money, and the

like

that he was a veritable farmer.

About the time

sues Philip Rog-

when he was writing Macbeth, he

ers, in

the borough-court of Stratford, for thirty-

five shillings, ten pence, for

corn delivered to him

at different times

and

in all respects appears as a

good husband, with no reputation for eccentricity

or excess.

He was

a good-natured sort of man,

theatre, not in

an actor and shareholder in the

any

striking manner distinguished from other actors

and managers.
formation.
It

I admit the importance of this in-

was well worth the pains that have

it.

been taken to procure

But whatever scraps

of information concerning

his condition these researches

may have

rescued,

they can shed no light upon that infinite invention

which
us.
tell

is

the concealed magnet of his attraction for

of history.

We are very clumsy writers

We
and
no

the chronicle of parentage, birth, birth-place,

of

schooling, school-mates, earning

riage, publication

money, mar;

of books, celebrity, death

to

when we have come

an end of
it

this gossip,

ray of relation appears between

and the goddess.

SHAKSPEARE;
born
;

OR,

THE POET.

197

and

it

seems as

if,

had we dipped at random and read any other

the

into the " jModern Plutarch,"

life there, it

would have

fitted

poems as

well.

It is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rain-

bow daughter

Wonder, from the invisible, to Malone, abolish the past and refuse all history. Warburton, Dyce and Collier, have wasted their oil. The famed theatres, Covent Garden, Drury Lane,
of

the

Park and Tremont

ha.ve vainly assisted.

Bet-

terton, Garrick,

Kemble, Kean and Macready ded-

icate their lives to this genius elucidate,

obey and express.

them

not.

The

recitation

him they crown, The genius knows begins one golden word
;
;

leaps out immortal from all this painted pedantry

and sweetly torments us with

inaccessible homes. see the

invitations to its

own

remember

I went once to

Hamlet

of a
;

famed performer, the pride of

the English stage

and all I then heard and all I remember of the tragedian was that in which now the tragedian had no part simply Hamlet's ques;

tion to the ghost

"

What may

this

mean,
"

That thou, dead

corse, again

m complete steel
moon
?

Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the

That imagination which

dilates the closet

it

he writes

in to the world's dimension, crowds in

with agents
real-

rank and order, as quickly reduces the big

be the glimpses of the moon.

ity to

These tricks

198
of his

REPRESENTATIVE MEN,
magic
spoil for us the illusions of the green-

room.
ities

Can any biography shed light on the localinto which the Midsummer Night's Dream ad-

mits

me ?

Did Shakspeare

confide to any notary

or parish recorder, sacristan, or surrogate in Stratford, the genesis of that delicate creation ?
forest of

The

Arden, the nimble air of Scone Castle,

villa,

the moonlight of Portia's

" the antres vast

and
is

desarts idle " of Othello's captivity,

where
?

the third cousin, or grand-nephew, the chancelfile

lor's

of

accounts, or private

letter, that

has

kept one word of those transcendent secrets

fine, in this

drama, as in

all

great works of art,

In

in the Cyclopaean architecture of Eg}^pt and India, in the Phidian sculpture, the Gothic minsters, the
Italian painting, the Ballads of Spain

land,

the Genius draws up the ladder

to heaven,

and Scotafter him,

when the creative age goes up way to a new age, which sees
in vain for a history.

and gives

the works and asks

Shakspeare
speare
;

is

the only biographer of

tell
is,

Shak-

and even he can

us, that

nothing, except to the

Shakspeare in
sive

to our

most apprehen-

and sympathetic hour.

He

cannot step from

of his inspi-

off his tripod

and give us anecdotes

rations.

Read

the antique documents extricated,

analyzed

and compared by the assiduous Dyce and Cdlier, and now read one of these skyey

SHAKSPEARE;
sentences,

OR,

THE POET.
to

199

aerolites,

which seem
they match
;

have fallen

out of heaven, and which not your experience but

the

man

within the breast has accepted as words

tell

of fate,

and

me

if

if

the former

account in any manner for the latter; or which

gives the most historical insight into the man.

Hence, though our external history

yet, with Shakspeare

is

so meagre,
of

for

biograj)her, instead

Aubrey and Rowe, wehave

which
the
is

really the information

material; that which describes character

if

and fortune, that which,

we were about

to

meet

man and

deal with him, would most import

us to know.

We

have his recorded convictions

on those questions which knock for answer at every

heart,

on
at

life

and death, on
life

poverty, on the prizes of

love, on wealth and and the ways whereby

we come
fortunes

them

on the characters of men, and

the influences, occult and open, which affect their

;

and on those mysterious and demoniacal

in-

powers which defy our science and which yet

terweave their malice and their gift in our brightest

hours.

Who

ever read the volume of the

Sonnets without finding that the poet had there

revealed, under

masks that are no masks

to the
;

intelligent, the lore of friendship

and of love the

confusion of sentiments in the most susceptible,

and, at the same time, the most intellectual of

men?

What

trait of

his

private

mind has he

200

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
One can
discern, in his

hidden in his dramas?

ample pictures of the gentleman and the king,

what forms and humanities pleased him
cheerful giving.
;

his de-

light in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in

Let Timon,

let

Warwick,

let

Antonio the merchant answer for his great heart. So far from Shakspeare's being the least known,
he
to
is

the one person, in all

modern

history,

known

us.

What

point of morals, of manners, of

religion,

economy, of philosophy, of
the conduct of
life,

of

taste, of

has he not settled?

What
man's

mystery has he not signified his knowledge of?

What

office,

or

function,

or
?

district

of

work, has he not remembered

What

king has

he not taught

Talma taught Napoleon ? What maiden has not fomid him finer than her
state, as

delicacy?

What

lover

has he

not

outloved?

What

sage has he not outseen ?

What

gentleman

has he not instructed in the rudeness of his behavior ?

Some
criticism
rest

able and

appreciating critics

think no

on

Shakspeare valuable that does not

is

purely on the dramatic merit; that he

falsely

judged as poet and philosopher.

these critics of his
it
;

I think

as highly as

dramatic merit,
a full man,

but

still

think

secondary.

He was

who

liked to talk

a brain exhaling thoughts and

images, which, seeking vent, foimd the

drama next

; :

SHAKSPEARE
at hand.

OR,
less,

THE POET.

201

Had
how
it

he been

to consider

well he filled his place,

we should have had how good

is

a dramatist he was,
world.

and
is

he
that

the best in the

But

turns out

what he has to some

saint

say

is

of that weight as to
;

withdraw some attention

like

from the vehicle

history
is

and he

whose

to be rendered into all languages, into

verse and prose, into songs and pictures, and cut

up

into proverbs

so that the occasion

which gave
immaterial

the saint's

meaning the form of a conversation, or

is

of a prayer, or of a code of laws,

compared with the universality of

its application.

So
of

it

fares with the wise Shakspeare

and

his

book

life.
:

He

wrote the airs for

all

our modern
life
;

music
of

he wrote the text of modern

the text

manners: he drew the man of England and

;

Europe
done in

the father of the

man

in

America

he
is

drew the man, and described the day, and what

it
:

he read the hearts of

men and women,

and wiles

their probity,

and

their second thought

the wiles of innocence,

and

the transitions

by

which virtues and vices

slide into their contraries

he could divide the mother's part from the father's

part in the face of the child, or draw the fine

demarcations of freedom and of fate: he

the laws of repression which

knew

make
all

the police of
the terrors of

nature

and

all

the sweets

and

human

lot lay in his

mind

as truly but as softly

202

REPRESENTATIVE MEN,

as the landscape lies on the eye.

And
'

the impor-

tance of this wisdom of

life

sinks the form, as of

Drama
message

or Epic, out of notice.

T is

like

making

a question concerning the paper on

is

wliich a king's

written.
is

Shakspeare

as

much
is

out of the category of out of the crowd.

eminent authors, as he
is

He

inconceivably wise

the others, conceivably.

good reader can, in a

sort, nestle into Plato's

;

brain

and think from thence

but not into Shakspeare's.

We are still
imagine
it

out of doors.
is

For executive
unique.

faculty,

for creation, Shakspeare

better.

No man can

He was

the farthest reach of

subtlety compatible with an individual self,

subtilest of authors,
sibility of
is

the

and only

just within the posthis

authorship.

With

wisdom

of life

the

equal endowment of imaginative and of

lyric

power.

He

clothed the creatures

if
;

of

his

legend with form and sentiments as

people
real

they were

who had lived under his roof and few men have left such distinct characters as these

fictions.

And
fit.

they spoke in language as sweet

his talents never seduced

as

it

was

Yet

him

into an ostentation, nor did he harp on one string.

An

omnipresent humanity co-ordinates

jurive

all his factell,

ulties,

man

of talents a story to

and

his partiality will presently appear.

He

has cer-

tain

observations,

opinions,

topics,

which

have

SHAKSPEARE
poses all to exhibit.

OR,

THE POET.
crams

203
dis-

some accidental prominence, and which he

He

this

part and

starves that other part, consulting not the fitness

of the thing, but his fitness

and
no

strength.

But

Shakspeare has no
topic
ties
ist
; ;

peculiarity,
;

no

importunate

but

all

is

duly given

veins,

no

curiosi-

no cow-painter, no bird-fancier, no mannerhe

:

is

he has no discoverable egotism

;

the

great he tells greatly

the

small subordinately.
;

He

is

wise without_emphasis or assertion

is

he

is

strong, as nature

strong,

who

lifts

the land into

mountain slopes without

effort

and by the same

and
likes as

rule as she floats a bubble in the air,

well to do the one as the other.

This makes that

equality of power in farce, tragedy, narrative love-songs

is
;

and

a merit so incessant that each reader

incredulous of the perception of other readers.

This power of expression, or of transferring the

inmost truth of things into music and verse, makes

him the type

of the poet

and has added a new

is

problem to metaphysics.

This

that which throws

him

into natural history, as a

the globe,
rations.

main production of and as announcing new eras and ameliohe could paint the fine with prewith compass, the tragic and the

Things were mirrored in his poetry with:

out loss or blur

cision, the great

comic indifferently and without any distortion or

favor.

He

carried his

powerful execution into

204
minute

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
details, to

a hair point

finishes

an eyelash
;

or a dimple as firmly as he draws a mountain

and

yet these, like nature's, will bear the scrutiny of

the solar microscope.

In

short,

he

is

the chief example to prove that

more or
is

less of production,

more or fewer

pictures,

a thing

indifferent.

He had

the power to

make
one

one picture.
flower etch
its

Daguerre learned how to

image on

let

his plate of iodine,

and

then proceeds at leisure to etch a million.

are always objects
tation.
;

There

but there was never represen-

Here

is

perfect representation, at last ;

sit

and

now

let

the world of figures

for their portraits.

No

recipe can be given for the

making

of a Shaks-

peare; but the possibility of the translation of

things into song
is

demonstrated.
lies in

His

lyric

power

the genius of the piece.

is

The
and

sonnets, though their excellence

lost in the

splendor of the dramas, are as inimitable as they;

it is

not a merit of lines, but a total merit of

;

the piece

like the tone of voice of

is this

some incom-

parable person, so

a speech of poetic beings,

and any clause as unproducible now as a whole

poem.

Though the speeches

lines,

in the plays,

and

single

have a beauty which tempts the ear to pause

is

on them for their euphuism, yet the sentence

Bo

loaded with meaning and so linked with

its

; :

SHAKSPEARE;

OR,

THE POET.
is

205
satis-

foregoers and followers, that the logician

fied.

His means are as admirable as his ends

every subordinate invention, by which he helps

himself to connect some irreconcilable opposites,
is

poem

too.

He

is

not reduced to dismount and

walk because

his horses are

:

running

off

with him

in some distant direction

he always
first

rides.
;

The

finest

poetry was

experience

but the
it

thought has suffered a transformation since

was

an experience.
degree of

Cultivated

men

often attain a good

;

skill in

writing verses

but

it is

easy to

read, through their poems, their personal history

any one acquainted with the parties can name every

figure
;

this is

Andrew and

that

is

Rachel.

The

sense thus remains prosaic.

It is a caterpillar

with wings, and not yet a butterfly.

In the poet's

mind the

fact has

gone quite over into the new

lost all that is exuvial.

element of thought, and has

This generosity abides with Shakspeare.

We
is

say,

from the truth and closeness of

his pictures, that

he

knows the lesson by

trace of egotism.

heart.

Yet there

not a

poet.

One more royal trait properly belongs to the I mean his cheerfulness, without which no man can be a poet, for beauty is his aim. He

loves virtue, not for

ifcs

obligation but for

its

grace

he delights in the world, in man, in woman, for the

lovely light that sparkles

from them.

Beauty, the

206

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
and
hilarity, lie

spirit of joy

sheds over the uni-

verse.

Epicurus relates that poetry hath such

his mistress to

charms that a lover might forsake

partake of them.

And

the true bards have been

noted for their firm and cheerful temper.

lies in

Homer

sunshine; Chaucer is glad and erect; and Saadi says, " It was rumored abroad that I was
;

penitent

but what had I to do with repentance

"

Not

less sovereign

and

cheerful,

much more

sov-

ereign and cheerful,

is

the tone of

Shakspeare.
to the

His name suggests joy and emancipation

heart of men.
If he should appear in

any com-

pany
troop

of hiunan souls^
?

who would

not march in his

He

touches nothing that does not borrow

health and longevity from his festal style.

And
this

now, how stands the account of

man

with

bard and benefactor, when, in solitude, shut-

ting our ears to the reverberations of his fame,

we

seek to strike the balance

lessons
;

Solitude has austere

it

can teach us to spare both heroes and

it

poets ; and

weighs Shakspeare

also,

and

finds

him

to share the halfness

and imperfection

of humanity.

Shakspeare, Homer, Dante, Chaucer, saw the

splendor of meaning that plays over the visible

world

knew

that a tree

had another use than for

for meal,

apples,

and com another than

and the
:

baU

of the earth, than for tillage

and roads

that

SEAKSPEARE;
mind, being emblems of
ing in
all

OR,

THE POET.

207

these things bore a second

and

finer harvest to the

its

thoughts, and convey-

their natural
life.

history a certain

mute
rested

commentary on human

Shakspeare employed

them

as colors to compose his picture.

;

He

in their beauty

and never took the step which

to such genius,

seemed inevitable
parts this power
selves

namely

to explore

the virtue which resides in these symbols and im:

what

is

that which they them-

say?

He

converted the elements which

waited on his command, into entertainments.

He

was master of the

if

revels to

mankind.

Is

it

not as

one should have, through majestic powers of

his

science, the comets given into

hand, or the

planets and their moons,

and should draw them

from

their orbits to glare with the municipal fireall

works on a holiday night, and advertise in

towns, "

Very

superior pyrotechny this evening " ?

of nature,

Are the agents

and the power

to under-

stand them, worth no more than a street serenade,

or the breath of a cigar
the trumpet-text in the
?

Koran, " The

One remembers

again

heavens

and the earth and

question
of

all that is

between them, think

ye we have created them in jest?"

is

As

long as the

of talent

and mental power, the world

men

has not his equal to show.

is,

But when the

its auxiliit sig-

question
aries,

to life

and

its

materials and

how does he

profit

me ?

What

does

208
nify?

REPRESENTATIVE MEN,
It is but a

Twelfth Niglit, or Midsummer:

Night's Dream, or Winter Evening's Tale

nifies

what sig-

another picture more or less

verdict of the Shakspeare Societies

The Egyptian comes to mind

I can not

that he was a jovial actor

and manager.

marry this
have led
thought
;

fact to his verse.

Other admirable men

lives in

some

sort of keej)ing with their

but this man, in wide contrast.

Had

he

been

less,

had he reached only the common measure

leave the fact in the twilight of

of great authors, of Bacon, Milton, Tasso, Cervantes,

we might
fate
:

human

but that this

man

of

men, he who gave to the

mind a new and larger subject than had ever existed, and planted the standard of humanity
science of

some furlongs forward

into Chaos,
;

not be wise for himself

that he should

it

must even go into the

world's history that the best poet led an obscure

and profane
amusement.

life,

using his genius for the public

Well, other men, priest and prophet,

Israelite,
:

German and Swede, beheld

also

the same objects

they

saw through them that which was contained.

to

And

what purpose?
;

The beauty straightway

vanished

they read commandments, all-excluding

mountainous duty; an obligation, a sadness, as of

piled mountains, fell

on them, and

life

became

ghastly, joyless, a pilgrim's progress, a probation,

beleaguered round with doleful histories of Adam'a

SHAKSPEARE
fall

OR,

THE POET.

209

and curse behind us

with doomsdays and purbefore us

;

gatorial

and penal

fires

and the heart

sank in

of the seer

and the heart of the

listener

them.
It

must be conceded that these are half-views of

half-men.
reconciler,

The world still wants its poet-priest, a who shall not trifle, with Shakspeare the
Swedenborg
and
act,

player, nor shall grope in graves, with

the mourner; but

who
is

shall see, speak,

with

equal inspiration.
the sunshine
affection
; ;

For knowledge

will

brighten

right

more beautiful than private

compatible with universal

and love
14

is

wisdom.
voii. IV.

NAPOLEON; OR, THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

VI.

NAPOLEON;

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

Among

the eminent persons of the nineteenth

is

century, Bonaparte

far the best

known and

the

most powerful
thought and
active

and

owes his

predominance to
masses of

the fidelity with which he expresses the tone of

belief,

the aims

of the
is

and cidtivated men.

is is

It

Swedenborg's
of

theory that every organ

ous particles
;

made up

homogenethe lungs
the liver,
little

or as

it

sometimes expressed,
;

every whole

is

made

of similars

that

is,
;

are composed of infinitely small lungs

of
infinitely

small livers

the kidney, of
analogy,
if

kidneys, &c.
is

Following

tliis

any man

found

to carry with

him
if

the power and affecis

tions of vast numbers,

Napoleon

France,

if

Napoleon

is

Europe,
little

it is

because the people whom,

he sways are

Napoleons.
is

In our society there

between
classes;

a standing antagonism

the

conservative
those

and

the

democratic

between

who have

made

their

214
fortunes,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
and the young and the poor who have

fortunes to
labor,

make
is,

between the interests of dead

still

that

the labor of hands long ago

is

in

the grave, which labor

stocks, or in land

now entombed

in

money

idle capitalists,

and the
The

and buildings owned by

interests of living labor,

which seeks to possess

itself of

land and buildings

timid, self-

and money
ish,

stocks.

first class is

illiberal,

hating innovation, and continually

losing nimibers

by

death.

The second

class is

selfish also, encroaching, bold, self-relying,

always

outnumbering the other and recruiting

bers every hour by births.
It

its

numkeep

desires

to

open every avenue

to multiply avenues

to the competition of all,

:

and
in

the class of business

men

America, in England, in France and throughout

Europe
leon
is

the class of industry and

its

skill.

Napoof
ac-

representative.

The

instinct

tive, brave, able

men, throughout the middle

class
in-

every where, has pointed out Napoleon as the

carnate Democrat.
vices
;

He had

their virtues

and

their

above
is

all,

he had their

spirit or aim.

That

tendency
cess

material, pointing at
richest

a sensual suc-

and employing the

to

and most various

means

that end;

conversant with mechanical

powers, highly intellectual, widely and accuratelylearned and

lectual
skilful,

but subordinating

all

intel-

and

spiritual forces into

means

to a mate-

NAPOLEON;
rial

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 215

the
rich

success.

To be

man,

is

the end.

"God

has granted," says the Koran, "to every

its

people a prophet in

own tongue."

Paris and

London and New York, the spirit of commerce, of money and material power, were also to have their
prophet
;

and Bonaparte was

qualified

and

sent.

Every one

of the million readers of anecdotes

or memoirs or lives of Napoleon, delights in the

page, because he studies in

it

his

own

history.

Napoleon

is

thoroughly modern, and, at the high-

est point of his fortunes,

has the very

spirit of

the

newspapers.

He

is

no

saint,

to

use his

own word, " no capuchin," and he is no hero, in The man in the street finds in the high sense. him the qualities and powers of other men in the He finds him, like himself, by birth a street. citizen, who, by very intelligible merits, arrived at such a commanding position that he could indidge
all

those tastes which the

common man
deny:

possesses

but

is

obliged

to

conceal and

good

society,

good books,

fast

travelling, dress,

dinners, servants without number, personal weight,

the execution of his ideas, the standing in the

attitude of a benefactor to all persons about him,

the refined enjoyments of pictures, statues, music,

palaces and conventional honors,
is

precisely

what

agreeable to the heart of every

man

in the nine-

teenth century, this powerful

man

possessed.

"

216
It
is

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
true
tliat

man
of

of
tlie

Napoleon's

trutli of

adaptation to the

mind

masses around him,

becomes not merely representative but actually a

monopolizer and usurper of other minds.

Thus

Mirabeau plagiarized every good thought, every

good word that was spoken in France.
relates that

Dumont
It

he sat in the gallery of the Conven-

tion

and heard

Mirabeau make a speech.

that he could
fit

struck
ration,

Dumont
it

it

with a pero-

which he wrote in pencil immediately, and

to

showed showed
nounced

Elgin approved
it
it it

Lord Elgin, who sat by him. Lord it, and Dumont, in the evening,
Mirabeau read
it,

to Mirabeau.

pro-

admirable, and declared he would ininto his

corporate

harangue to-morrow, to the

Assembly.

" It

is

impossible," said

Dumont, " as,

unfortunately, I have

shown
to

" If you have shown

it

it to Lord Elgin." Lord Elgin and to fifty

persons beside, I shall

still

speak

it

to-morrow

and he did speak

day's session.

it,

with

much

effect, at

the next

For Mirabeau, with

his overpower-

ing personality, felt that these things which his presence inspired were as

much
his

his

own

as

if

he

had said them, and that

gave them their weight.
centralizing
larity

adoption of them
absolute and

Much more

was the successor

to Mirabeau' s popu-

and

to

in France.

much more than his predominance Indeed, a man of Napoleon's stamp

NAPOLEON;

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

and

217

almost ceases to have a private speech and opinion.

He

is

so largely receptive,

is

so placed,

that he comes to be a bureau for all

the intelli-

gence, wit and povv^er of the age

and country.
;

He

gains the battle

he makes the code

;

he makes

the system of weights and measures

he levels the

Alps

he builds the road.

All distinguished en-

gineers, savans, statists, report to

him

so likewise

do

all

good heads in every kind: he adopts the

best measures, sets his these alone, but expression.

stamp on them, and not

on every happy and memorable

his writing, deserves reading,

Every sentence spoken by Napoleon

line of

and every
as
it is

the sense of France.

Bonaparte was the idol of common men because

he had in transcendent degree the qualities and

powers of common men.

faction in
politics,

There

is

a certain

satis-

coming down to the lowest ground of

for

we

get rid of cant and hypocrisy.

Bonaparte wrought, in common with that great

class

he represented, for power and wealth,

but
senti-

Bonaparte, specially, without any scruple as to the

means.

All the sentiments wliich embarrass men's

pursuit of these objects, he set aside.

The
when

ments were for women and children.

1804, expressed Napoleon's

Fontanes, in
in be-

own

sense,

half of the Senate he addressed him,

desire of perfection
is

"

Sire, the

the worst disease that ever

218
afflicted the

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
human
mincl."

The advocates
ideologists
;

of

lib-

erty

and of progress are "

" " Lafayette

"
;

of contempt often in his

ideologist
:

mouth
is

a word
is

''

Necker

an

an ideologist."

An
good."

Italian

proverb, too well known, declares

that " if you

It is

would succeed, you must not be too

an advantage, within certain
limits, to

have renounced the dominion of the sentiments of

piety, gratitude

and generosity

since

what was an
becomes
just as the

impassable bar to us, and

still is

to others,
;

a convenient weapon for our purposes

river

which was a formidable

barrier, winter trans-

forms into the smoothest of roads.

Napoleon renounced, once for

affections,

all,

sentiments and
his

and would help himself with

hands

and

his head.

With him

is

no miracle and no
iron, in

magic.

He

is

a worker in brass, in

wood,
in

in earth, in roads, in buildings, in

troo]3s,

money and

and a very consistent and wise master-work-

man.

He

is

never weak and literary, but acts with

the solidity and the precision of natural agents.

He

has not lost his native sense and sympathy with

things.

Men

give

fore natural events.

way before such a man, as beTo be sure there are men

in things, as farmers,

enough who are immersed

smiths, sailors

and mechanics generally; and we and

solid such

know how

real

men appear

in the

presence of scholars and grammarians: but these

NAPOLEON;
men

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 219

But Bonaparte
in
su-

ordinarily lack the power of arrangement, and

are like hands without a head.

peradded to

this

mineral and animal

so that

force, insight

and generalization,
the sea and land
pher.

men saw
flesh

him comif

bined the natural and the intellectual power, as

had taken

and begun

to ci-

Therefore the land and sea seem to presup-

pose him.
ceived him.

He came

unto his own and they

re-

This ciphering operative laiows what

is

he

is

working with and what

properties of gold

the product.
iron, of

He

knew the

and

wheels and

ships, of troops

and diplomatists, and required that

its

each should do after

kind.
in

The

art of

war was the game

which he exerted

his arithmetic.

It consisted, according to him, in

having always more forces than the enemy, on the

point where the

enemy

is

attacked, or where he at-

tacks

and
at

his whole talent is strained

to

manoeuvre and evolution,

by endless march always on the

detail.

enemy

an angle, and destroy his forces in

It is obvious that a very small force, skilfully

and

rapidly manoeuvring so as always to bring two

men

against one at the point of engagement, will be an

overmatch for a much larger body of men.

The

times, his constitution

and

his early circum-

stances combined to develop this pattern democrat.

He had

the virtues of his class and the conditions

for their activity.

That conmion-sense which no

220

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
it

sooner respects any end than

effect it
;

finds the

means
;

to

the delight in the use of means

in the
;

choice, simplification

and combining

of

means
;

the

directness and thoroughness of his

work

the pru-

dence

Y/ith

which

all

was seen and the energy with

all was done, make him the natural organ and head of what I may almost call, from its ex-

which

tent, the

modern
and

party.

Nature must have far the greatest share in every

success,

so in his.

Such a man was wanted,

;

and such a

man was born

man

of stone

and
sev-

iron, capable of sitting

on horseback sixteen or

enteen hours, of going

rest or food except

many days
snatches,
;

together without

by

and with the speed

a

and spring

of a tiger in action
;

man

not embarselfish,

rassed by any scruples

compact, instant,

prudent, and
itself to

of a perception

which did not

suffer

be baulked or misled by any pretences of

others, or

any superstition or any heat or haste

of
at

his own.

"My
my

hand

of iron" he said,

"was not

the extremity of

my

arm,

it

was immediately conrespected the power

it

nected with

head."

He

of nature and fortune, and ascribed to

his su-

periority, instead of valuing himself, like inferior

men, on his opinionativeness, and waging war with

nature.
star
;

His favorite rhetoric lay in allusion to

his

and he pleased himself,

styled

as well as the people,

when he

himseK the "Child of Destiny."

NAPOLEON;
"

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD,

said, ".with the

221

They charge me," he

:

commission

of great crimes

men

of

my

stamp do not commit

crimes.

Nothing has been more simple than

't is

my

elevation,

in vain to ascribe it to intrigue or

crime

it

was owing

to the peculiarity of the times

and

to

my

reputation of having fought well against

the enemies of

my country.

I have always marched

with the opinion of great masses and with events.

Of what
he
said,

use then would crimes be to

me ?

"

Again

speaking of his son, "

;

My

son can not reI

place

me

I could not replace myself.

am

the

creature of circumstances."

He had
ist, terrific

a directness of action never before com-

bined with so

much comprehension.

He

is

real-

to all talliers

and confused truth-obscurwhere the matter hinges,

ing persons.

He

sees

throws himself on the precise point of resistance,

and

slights all other considerations.

He

is

strong

in the right manner, namely

by

insight.

He

never

blundered into victory, but won his battles in his

head before he won them on the

cipal

field.

His prin"I

means are

in himself.

He

asks counsel of no
:

other.

In 1796 he writes to the Directory

I should have done no good

have conducted the campaign without consulting

any

one.

if

had been

under the necessity of conforming to the notions of

another person.
I have gained some advantages

over superior forces and

when

totally destitute of

222

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
tlie

every thing, because, in

persuasion that youT

confidence was reposed in me,

my

actions were as

prompt
ity of

as

my

thoughts."

History

is full,

down

to this day, of the imbecil-

kings and governors.

persons

much

to

he

pitied, for they

They are a class of know not what

and

they should do.

The weavers

strike for bread,

the king and his ministers, knowing not what to

do,

meet them with bayonets.

But Napoleon unin

derstood his business.

Here was a man who

each moment and emergency knew what to do next.

It is

an immense comfort and refreshment

not only of kings, but of citizens.

to the

spirits,

Few
line,

men have any

and

next

they live from hand to mouth,

without plan, and are ever at the end of their

after each action wait for

an impulse from
first

abroad.
world,
is,

Napoleon had been the

his ends

man

of the

if

had been purely

public.

As he

he inspires confidence and vigor by the extraor-

dinary unity of his action.

He

is firm,

sure, self-

denyuig, self-postponing, sacrificing every thing,

money, troops, generals, and his own safety

not to his aim by the splendor
;

also,

misled, like
of
his

common own means.

adventurers,

" Incidents

ought not to govern policy," he

incidents."
is

said, "

but policy,

"

To be

hurried

away by every event

all."

to

have no

political

system at
doors,

His

vie*

tories

were only so

many

and he never

for a

NAPOLEON;
moment
zle

OR,

TEE MAN OF THE WORLD. 22B

way onward,
to his

lost sight of his

in the daz-

and uproar of the

to do,

j)resent circumstance.

knew what

and he flew

mark.

He He
from
suc-

would shorten a straight

Horrible anecdotes

line to conie at his object.

may no doubt be

collected

his history, of the price at

which he bought his

cesses
cruel,

but he must not therefore be set down as

but only as one who

;

knew no impediment
his

to to

his will

not bloodthirsty, not cruel,

but woe
!

what thing or person stood in

thirsty,

way

Not bloodpitiless.

but not sparing of blood,

:

and

He
way.

saw only the object

the obstacle must give

" Sire, General Clarke can not combine with

fire

General Junot, for the dreadful

trian

battery."

"

" Let
:

of the

Aus-

him carry the

battery."

Sire, every

artillery is

regiment that approaches the heavy " Forsacrificed Sire, what orders ? "

ward, forward "

!

Seruzier, a colonel of artillery,

gives, in

his " Military

Memoirs," the following

sketch of a scene after the battle of Austerlitz.

"

At

the

moment

in

which the Russian army was

making

its retreat,

painfully, but in

good order, on

the ice of the lake, the

Emperor Napoleon came

riding at full speed toward the artillery. are losing time," he cried; "fire

"You

they must be engulfed

fire

upon those masses; upon the ice " The

!

order remained unexecuted for ten minutes.

In

vain several officers and myself were placed on the

224

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
:

slope of a hill to produce the effect

their bails
it

and
up.

mine

rolled

upon the

ice

without breaking

Seeing that, I tried a simple method of elevating

light howitzers.

The almost perpendicular

fall of
effect.

the heavy projectiles produced the desired

My

method was immediately followed by the adand in

less

joining batteries,
ied " some
^

than no time we bur-

" thousands of Russians and Austrians

under the waters of the lake."

In the plenitude of his resources, every obstacle

seemed
said
;

to vanish.

" There shall be no Alps," he

and he

built his perfect roads, climbing

by

graded galleries their steepest precipices, until Italy

was

as open to Paris as

any town in France.

his crown.

He
Hav-

laid his bones to,

and wrought for

ing decided what was to be done, he did that with

might and main.

He

put out

all his strength.

He

risked every thing and spared nothing, neither am-

munition, nor money, nor troops, nor generals, nor

himself.

We
and
seem
if

like to see every thing

it

do

its

office after its

kind, whether

be a milch-cow or a rattle-snake
be the best mode of adjusting

fighting

national differences, (as large majorities of

to agree, ) certainly
it

men

Bonaparte was right in

principle of war,
Seruziei;

oiaking
^

thorough.

The grand

As I quote

at second hand,

and cannot procure

X dare not adopt the high figure I find.

NAPOLEON;
he
said,

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

to at all hours, to

225

was that an army ought always

capable of making.

be ready,

by day and by night and

the resistance
it

make

all

is

He

never

economized his ammunition, but, on a hostile position,

rained a torrent of iron,

shot,

shells, balls,

grape-

to annihilate all defence.

On
it

any point

of resistance

he concentrated squadron on squad-

ron in overwhelming numbers until

out of existence.

was swept
horse-chas-

To a regiment

of

seurs at Lobenstein, two days before the battle of

Jena, Napoleon said, "

My

lads,

you must not fear

death

when

soldiers brave death, they drive

him
edge

into the enemy's ranks."

In the fury of

assault,

he no more spared himself.

of his possibility.

He went

to the

It is plain that in Italy

all

he did
came,

what he could, and

person was

that he could.
;

He
and

several times, within an inch of ruin

all

his

own

but

lost.

He was

flung into the

marsh
and
off

at Areola.

The Austrian s were between him

and he was brought
at other
efforts.

his troops, in the melee^

with desperate

At Lonato, and

places, he

was on the point of being taken prisoner.

He

fought sixty battles.

victory
fall,

He had
it

never enough.

Each
would
ments.

was a new weapon.

to support

were I not

power by new achieveI

"My

Conquest has made

conquest must maintain me."

wise man, that as
VOL. IV.
15

me what He felt,

am, and

with every

much

life is

needed for conserva-

226
tion

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
as for
creation.

We

are always

in peril,

always in a bad plight, just on the edge of destruction

and only

to

be saved by invention and courage.

This vigor was guarded and tempered by the

coldest prudence

and punctuality.

A thunderbolt
in
his
in-

in the attack, he

was found invulnerable

intrenchments.

His very attack was never the

consists in being

spiration of courage, but the result of calculation.

His idea of the best defence

the attacking party.

still

"

My

ambition," he

says,

"was
"

great, but

was of a cold nature."

In one

of his conversations with

Las Casas, he remarked,

kind
is

As

to

moral courage, I have rarely met with the

:

two-o'clock-in-the-morning

mean

unpre-

pared courage

that which

necessary on an un-

expected occasion, and which, in spite of the most

unforeseen events, leaves full freedom of judgment

and decision " and he did not

that he was himself eminently

hesitate to declare

endowed with
and
that

this

two-o'clock-in-the-morning

courage,

he

had met with few persons equal

respect.

to himself in this

Every thing depended on the nicety

binations,

of his com-

and the

stars

were not more punctual

"

than his arithmetic.

His personal attention de-

scended to the smallest particulars.

bello, I

At Monte-

ordered Kellermanu to attack with eight

hundred horse, and with these he separated the

NAPOLEON;
six

OR,

THE MAN GF THE WORLD. 227

very-

thousand Hungarian grenadiers, before the

eyes of the Austrian cavalry.

half a league
off

This cavahy was

and required a quarter of an

field of action,

hour to arrive on the

observed that
it is

and I have

always these quarters of an hour " Before he that decide the fate of a battle."
fought a battle, Bonaparte thought
little

about

what he should do
of fortune."

in case of success, but a great

deal about what he should do in case of a reverse

The same prudence and good

behavior.

sense

mark
*'

all

his

His instructions to his

secretary at the Tuileries are worth remembering.

During the

night, enter

my
;

chamber as seldom as
have any
is

possible.

Do

not awake

me when you

good news to communicate

hurry.

with that there

no

But when you bring bad news, rouse

It

me

instantly, for then there is not

lost."

a moment to be

was a whimsical economy of the same

kind which dictated his practice, when general in

Italy, in

regard to his burdensome correspondence.

all letters

He directed Bourrienne to leave

for three weeks,
tion

unopened
satisfac-

and then observed with

how

large a part of the correspondence

itself

had

thus disposed of

and no longer required an

of

answer.

His achievement of business was immense,

and enlarges the known powers

have been

man.

There

many working

kings, from Ulysses to

William of Orange, but none who accomplished a

tithe of this

man's performance.

228

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
these gifts of nature, Napoleon added the ad-

To

vantage of having been born to a private and humble fortune.

of wishing to

In his

later days

he had the weakness

add

to his crowns
;

and badges the

pre-

scription of aristocracy
his austere education,

but he knew his debt to

secret of his

and made no

contempt for the born kings, and for " the hereditary asses," as he coarsely styled the Bourbons.

He
ing,

said that " in their exile they

had learned noth-

and forgot nothing."

all

Bonaparte had passed

through

the degrees of military service, but also

was

citizen before

he was emperor, and so has

the key to citizenship.

His remarks and estimates

discover the information and justness of measure-

ment

of the middle class.

Those who had to deal

with him found that he was not to be imposed

upon, but could cipher as well as another man.
parts of his Memoirs, dictated
the expenses of the empress,

This appears in
at St. Helena.

all

When

of his household, of his palaces,

had accumulated

great debts, Napoleon examined the biUs of the creditors himself, detected overcharges and errors,

and reduced the claims by considerable sums. His grand weapon, namely the millions whom he
directed, he

owed
for

to the representative character

which clothed him.

for France
tain

He

interests us as
;

he stands

and

Europe

and he

exists as cap-

and king only as far as the Revolution, or the

NAPOLEON;
and a leader

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

In the
social interests,

229

interest of the industrious masses,

found an organ

in liim.

he

knew

the meaning and value of labor, and threw

himself naturally on that side.

I like an incident
St.

mentioned by one of his biographers at

lena.

He-

"

When

walking with Mrs. Balcombe, some

servants, carrying

heavy boxes, passed by on the

road,

and Mrs. Balcombe desired them, in rather

Napoleon interfered,
In the
Respect the burden, Madam.' "

an angry tone, to keep back.

saying
'

time of the empire he directed attention to the im-

provement and embellishment of the markets of

the capital.

Louvre of
works that
roads.
sort of

The market-place," he said, " is the the common people." The principal have survived him are his magnificent
filled

"

He

the troops with his spirit, and a

freedom and companionship grew up be-

tween him and them, which the forms of his court

officers and himself. They performed, under his eye, that which no others could do. The best document of his relation

never permitted between the

to his troops is the order of the

day on the morn-

ing of the battle of Austerlitz, in which Napoleon

promises the troops that he wiU keep his person

out of reach of
fire.

This declaration, which

is

the

reverse of that ordinarily

made by

generals and

sovereigns on the eve of a battle, sufficiently explains the devotion of the

army

to their leader.

230

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
tliongli there is in particulars this identity

But

between Napoleon and the mass of the people, his

real strength lay in their conviction that he
their representative in his

was

genius and aims, not only

when he courted, but when he controlled, and even when he decimated them by his conscriptions. He knew, as well as any Jacobin in France, how to philosophize on liberty and equality and when allusion was made to the precious blood of centuries, which was spilled by the killing of the Due d'Enghien,
;

he suggested, " Neither

is

my

blood ditch-water."
oc-

The people

felt that

no longer the throne was

its

cupied and the land sucked of

nourishment, by
all

a small class of legitimates, secluded from

com-

munity with the children of the

the
ideas

soil,

and holding

and

superstitions

of

a long-forgotten

state of society.

Instead of that vampyre, a

man

of themselves held, in the Tuileries, knowledge

ideas like their own, opening of course to

their children all places of

and them and

power and

trust.

The

day of sleepy, selfish policy, ever narrowing the means and opportunities of young men, was ended, and a day of expansion and demand was come. A
market for
of youth
all
;

the powers and productions of

man

was opened

brilliant prizes glittered in the eyes

talent.

and

The

old, iron-bound, feudal

France was changed into a young Ohio or

;

New

York and those who smarted under the immediate

NAPOLEON;
rigors of the

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

231

new monarch, pardoned them

as the

necessary severities of the military system which

had driven out the oppressor. And even when the majority of the people had begun to ask whether
they had really gained any thing under the exhausting levies of

men and money

of the

new
as

master,

the whole talent of the country, in every rank and

kindred, took his part and defended
ural patron.

him

its

nat-

In 1814, when advised to rely on the

higher classes, Napoleon said to those around him,

" Gentlemen, in the situation in which I stand,

my
The

only nobility

is

the rabble of the Faubourgs."

this

Napoleon met

natural expectation.

necessity of his position required a hospitality to

every sort of talent, and

its

appointment to trusts
this policy.
felt

and
for

his feeling

went along with

Like

every superior person, he undoubtedly

a desire

men and^compeers, and

and underlings.

a wish to measure his

power with other masters, and an impatience of

fools

In Italy, he sought for

he
said,

and found none.

rare
Italy,

"Good God!"
difficulty

men "how

men

are

There are eighteen millions in

found two,

and I have with

Dandolo and Melzi."

creased.

In later years, with larger

experience, his respect for

mankind was not

in-

In a moment of bitterness he said to

one of his oldest friends, "

Men

deserve the conI have only to

tempt with which they inspire me.

232

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

put some gold-lace on the coat of

my

virtuous re-

publicans and they immediately become just what

I wish them."
ever,

This impatience at levity was, how-

an oblique tribute of respect to those able

persons

who commanded

his regard not only

when

he found them friends and coadjutors but also

when they

resisted his will.

Pitt, Carnot,

He

could not con-

found Fox and

Lafayette and Berna;

dotte, with the danglers of his court

and

in spite

of the detraction which his systematic egotism dic-

tated toward the great captains

who conquered
are

with and for him, ample acknowledgments

made by him

to Lannes, Duroc, Kleber, Dessaix,

Massena, Murat, Ney and Augereau.

If he felt

himself their patron and the founder of their fortunes, as

when he

said " I

made my

generals out of

mud,"

he could

not hide his satisfaction in re-

ceiving from

them a seconding and support comIn

mensurate with the grandeur of his enterprise.

the Russian campaign he was so

much impressed by

the courage and resources of Marshal Ney, that he

said, " I

have two hundred millions in

all for

my
The

coffers,

and I would give them

ters

Ney."

charac-

which he has drawn of several of his marshals

are discriminating,

tent the insatiable vanity of

and though they did not conFrench officers, are no

doubt substantially
of merit

just.

And

in fact every species

his gov-

was sought and advanced under

NAPOLEON
eminent.

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

lie

233

"I know"

said,

"the depth and

draught of water of every one of

my

generals."

Natural power Avas sure to be well received at his

court.

Seventeen
soldiers
;

men
to

in his time were raised

from

common

the rank of king,

his

marshal,

duke, or general

and the crosses of

"

Legion of
to

Honor were given

family connexion.

to personal valor,

and not
have
all

When

soldiers

have been bapone

tized in the fire of a battle-field, they

rank in

my When a

eyes."

natural king becomes a titular king,

is

The RevoluFaubourg powderand horse-boy every and Antoine, St. monkey in the army, to look on Napoleon as flesh
every body
pleased and satisfied.
tion entitled the strong populace of the
of his flesh

and the creature

of his party

but

there

is

something in the success of grand talent

which

enlists

an universal sympathy.

For

in the

prevalence of sense and spirit over stupidity and

malversation, all reasonable
as intellectual beings

men have an

interest

we feel the air purified and by the electric shock, when material force is overthrown by intellectual energies. As soon as we are removed out of the reach of local and accidental partialities,

Man

feels that

Napoleon
;

fights for

him

these are honest victories

this strong steam-

engine does our work.

Whatever appeals

to the

imagination, by transcending the ordinary limits of

234

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
ability,

human
ates us.

wonderfully encourages and

liber*
dis-

This capacious head, revolving and

affairs,

posing sovereignly trains of

and animating
which looked
;

such multitudes of agents

this eye,

through Europe

this
:

prompt invention
!

haustible resource
pictures
!

what events
!

this inex-

what strange situations

when
;

what romantic
spying

the Alps, by a sunset in the Sicilian sea

drawing

up his army for battle in sight of the Pyramids, and saying to his troops, " From the tops of those
pyramids, forty centuries look down on you;" fording the

Red Sea

wading
"

in the gulf of the Isth-

mus

of Suez.

On

the shore of Ptolemais, gigantic

projects agitated him.

Had Acre

fallen, I

should

have changed the face of the world."

His army,

on the night of the battle of Austerlitz, which was

the anniversary of his inauguration as Emperor,

presented him with a bouquet of forty standards

taken in the

fight.

Perhaps

it is

little puerile,

the pleasure he took in

glaring
;

as

making these contrasts when he pleased himself with maldng

Tilsit, at

kings wait in his antechambers, at

Paris

and

at Erfurt.

We

cannot, in the universal imbecility, indecis-

ion and indolence of men, sufficiently congratulate

ourselves on this strong and ready actor,

occasion by the beard, and showed us

who took how much

vir

may be

accomplished by the mere force of such

NAPOLEON;
tues as all

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

;

235
by-

men

possess in less degrees

attention,

namely,

punctuality,

by personal
"

by courage and

thoroughness.

The Austrians

" he said, " do not

know

the value of time."

I should cite him, in his

earlier years, as a

model of prudence.
like
;

His power

does not consist in any wild or extravagant force

in

any enthusiasm

Mahomet's, or singular

power of persuasion

but in the exercise of com-

mon-sense on each emergency, instead of abiding

by

rules

and customs.

The

lesson he teaches
;

is
is

that which vigor always teaches

that

there

always room for doubts

is

it.

To what heaps
life

of cowardly

not that man's

it

an answer.

When
men
it is

he

appeared

was the

belief of all military

that

there could be nothing

lief of

new

in

war

as

the be-

men

to-day that nothing

new can be undermanners and

taken in

politics, or in

church, or in letters, or in

trade, or in farming, or in our social

customs

and

as

it is

at all times the belief of so-

ciety that the world is used up.

;

But Bonaparte

knew better than society and moreover knew that he knew better. I think all men know better than they do know that the institutions we so volubly commend are go-carts and baubles but they dare
;

not trust their presentiments.

his

Bonaparte relied on

own

sense,

and did not care a bean for other

treated his novelties just as
it

people's.

The world

treats everybody's novelties,

made

infinite objec-

236
tion,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
mustered
all the

impediments

but he snapped

his finger at their objections.

difficulty "

" What creates great

he remarks, " in the profession of the

is

land -commander,

the necessity of feeding so

If he allows himself to be
stir,

many men and

all his

animals.

guided by the commissaries he will never

expeditions will fail."
is

and
his

An

example of

common-sense

what he says of the passage of the

all
^vriters,

Alps in winter, which

after the
other,

one repeating
impracticable.

had described

as

"The
tains.

winter," says Napoleon,

"is not the most

unfavorable season for the passage of lofty moun-

The snow
is

is

then firm, the weather settled,

and there
real

nothing to fear from avalanches, the

to be

and only danger

apprehended in the

Alps.

On

those high mountains there are often

very fine days in December, of a dry cold, with exair." Read his account, too, way in which battles are gained. " In all battles a moment occurs when the bravest troops, after having made the greatest efforts, feel inclined

treme calmness in the

of ^the

to run.

That terror proceeds from a want of con-

fidence in their

own
art

courage,

and

it

only requires a

slight opportunity, a pretence, to restore confidence

to them.

The

is,

to give rise to \h.Q opportu-

nity

and

to invent the pretence.

At Areola

won

the battle with twenty-five horsemen.

I seized that

moment

of lassitude, gave every

man a

trumpet,

NAPOLEON;

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 237

this handful.

and gained the day with

You

see

that two armies are two bodies wliich meet

and enof panic

deavor to frighten each other

occurs,
tage.
tions,

moment

and that moment must be turned

to advan-

When
:

man

has been present in

many

ac-

he distinguishes that moment without

it is

diffi-

culty

as easy as casting

up an

addition."

This deputy of the nineteenth century added

to his gifts a capacity for speculation
topics.

on general

He

delighted

in

running

through the

range of practical, of literary and of abstract questions.

His opinion

is

always original and to the

purpose.

On

the voyage to

Egypt he

liked,

after dinner, to fix

on three or four persons to

support a proposition, and as

many

to oppose

it.

He

gave a subject, and the discussions turned on

questions of religion, the different kinds of gov-

ernment and the art of war.

One day he asked

whether the planets were inhabited ?

On

another,
pro-

what was the age of the world ?

of the globe, either

Then he
fire

posed to consider the probability of the destruction

by water or by
of dreams.

at an-

other time, the truth or fallacy of presentiments,

and the interpretation

He was

very

fond of talking of religion.

In 1806 he conversed

with Fournier, bishop of Montpellier, on matters

of theology.

There were two points on which they

viz.

could not agree,

that of hell,

and that

of salva-

238

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
The Emperor

tion out of the pale of the church.

told Josephine that he disputed like a devil on

these two points, on which the bishop was inexorable.

To

the philosophers

he readily yielded

all

that was proved against religion as the

work

of

men and time, but he would not hear ism. One fine night, on deck, amid
said, "

of material-

a clatter of

materialism, Bonaparte pointed to the stars, and

You may

talk as long as you please, genall

tlemen, but

who made

that

"

He

delighted

in the conversation of

men
;

of science, particularly

of

Monge and
he slighted

Berthollet
;

but the

men

of let-

ters

they were " manufacturers of

too he
its

phrases."
ing,

Of medicine

was fond of

talk-

and with those of

esteemed,

practitioners

most

with
last,
life is

whom

he

Corvisart at Paris,

and

with Antonomarchi at St. Helena.

" Believe me,"

he said to the
these remedies
:

"we had

better leave off all

a fortress which neither you

nor I know anything about.

cles in the

Why

throw obsta-

way

of

its

defence?

Its

own means

are su23erior to all the apparatus of your laboratories.

Corvisart candidly agreed with

me

that all

your
cine

filthy
is

mixtures are good for nothing.

Medi-

a collection of uncertain prescriptions, the

results of which, taken collectively, are

more
and

fatal

than useful to mankind.

Water,

air

cleanli

ness are the chief articles in

my pharmacopoeia."

NAPOLEON;

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

to
St.

239

His memoirs, dictated

General Gourgaud at

Count Montholon and

seems
is to

Helena, have great value,

it

after all the deduction that

be made

from them on account of

ness.

his

known

disingenuous-

He

has the good-nature of strength

and
his

conscious superiority.

I admire his simple, clear

;

narrative of his battles

good

as Caesar's

good-natured and sufficiently respectful account of

Marshal Wurmser and

his

his other antagonists

and

ject.

own equality as a writer to his varying subThe most agreeable portion is the Campaign
hours of thought and wisdom.

in Egypt.

He had

In

in-

tervals of leisure, either in the

camp

or the palace,

Napoleon appears as a

man

of genius directing

on abstract questions the native appetite for truth

and the impatience

in war.

of

words he was wont to show

He

could enjoy every play of invention,

a romance, a hon mot^ as well as a stratagem in a

campaign.

He

delighted to fascinate Josephine

in

and her

ladies,

a dim-lighted apartment, by
to

the terrors of a fiction

which his voice and

dramatic power lent every addition.

I call Napoleon the agent or attorney of the middle class of

modern

society

of the throng

who

fill

the markets, shops, counting-houses, manufactories,

ships, of the

modern world, aiming

to be rich.

He

was the

agitator, the destroyer of prescription, the

240

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

internal improver, the liberal, the radical, the in-

ventor of means, the opener of doors and markets,

the subverter of monopoly and abuse.

Of

course

the rich and aristocratic did not like him.

land, the centre of capital,

Eng-

aud Home and Austria,

dull

centres of tradition and genealogy, opposed him.

The

consternation

of

the

and conservative

classes, the terror of the foolish old

men and

old

women

of the

Roman

conclave,

who

in their de-

spair took hold of

red-hot iron,

the

any thing, and would cling to

vain attempts of statists to

amuse and deceive him, of the emperor of Austria to bribe him and the instinct of the young, ardent and active men every where, which pointed him
;

out as the giant of the middle class,

tory bright and commanding.

make

his his-

He had
:

the virtues

of the masses of his constituents

vices.

he had also their

its

am

sorry that the brilliant picture has

that
is

reverse.

But
is

the fatal quality wliich

it

we

discover in our pursuit of wealth, that

erous,

is

treach-

and

bought by the breaking or weakening

of the

sentiments;

and

it

is

inevitable

that

we

should find the same fact in the history of this

champion, who proposed to himself simply a

iant career, without

brill-

any

stipulation or scruple con-

cerning the means.

Bonaparte was singularly destitute of generous

sentiments.

The

highest-placed individual in the

NAPOLEON;

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

common
;

241

most cultivated age and population of the world,

lie

has not the merit of

truth and honesty.

He

is unjust to his generals

egotistic

and monopin-

olizing;

meanly stealing the

credit of their great

;

actions

from Kellermann, from Bernadotte

triguing to involve his faithful Junot in hopeless

bankruptcy, in order to drive him to a distance

from Paris, because the familiarity

ners offends the

of his

manis

boundless

liar.

new The

pride of his throne.

official

He

paper, his " Moniteur,"

and
his

all his bulletins,

are proverbs for saying what

;

he wished

to

be believed

and worse,

he
all

sat,

in

premature old age, in his lonely island, coldly

falsifying facts

and dates and characters, and

Like
effect.
is

giv-

ing to history a theatrical Sdat.

Frenchac-

men

he has a passion for stage

Every

tion that breathes of generosity

calculation.

poisoned by this
his doc-

His

star, his love of glory,

trine of the immortality of the soul, are all French.

" I must dazzle and astonish.

the liberty of the press,

If I were to give
last

my

power could not

is

three days."
design.

To make a
is

great noise

his favorite
:

"

A great reputation is

a great noise
off it
is

the

more there
Laws,

made, the farther

heard.
fall
;

institutions,

monuments, nations,

all

but the noise continues, and resounds in after ages."

His doctrine of immortality

theory of influence
VOL. IV.
16 is

is

simply fame.

His

not flattering.

" There are

242

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

two levers for moving men,

interest

and

fear.

Love
ship love

is

silly infatuation,

depend upon

it.

Friend-

is

but a name.
:

I love nobody.

I do not even
little,

my brothers
him
too
:

perhaps Joseph a
is

from

habit,

and because he
;

my

elder

and Duroc, I
his

love

but
is

why ?

because
resolute,

character

pleases

me

he

stern

and

and I believe
part I

the fellow never shed a tear.

For

very well that I have no true friends.

I continue to be what I am, I

know As long as may have as many

Leave
sensibility

my

pretended friends as I please.

to

women

but

men

should be firm in heart and

purpose, or they should have nothing to do with

war and government."

pulous.

He was

thoroughly unscru-

He

would

steal, slander, assassinate,

drown
no
in-

and poison, as
generosity, but

his interest dictated.

He had
he was

mere vulgar hatred

tensely selfish; he was perfidious; he cheated at

cards
ters,

he was a prodigious gossip, and opened

his

let-

and delighted in

infamous

police,

and

rubbed his hands with joy when he had intercepted

some morsel of

intelligence concerning the

men and

women
thing
of the
;

about him, boasting that " he

knew every
and

" and interfered with the cutting the dresses

women

and listened

after the hurrahs

the compliments of the street, incognito.

His manwith low

ners were
familiarity.

coarse.

He

treated

women

He had

the habit of pulling their ears

NAPOLEON;
and pinching

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD. 243

when he was
in

their cheeks

good

humor, and of pulling the ears and whiskers of

men, and of striking and horse-play with them, to

his last days.
It does not

appear that he listened

he was caught at
it.

at key-holes, or at least that

In

short,

circles

when you have penetrated through all the of power and splendor, you were not deal;

ing with a gentleman, at last

but with an impostor

and a rogue

and he

fully deserves the epithet of

Jupiter Scapin^ or a sort of

Scamp

Jupiter.

In describing the two parties into which

society divides itself,
servative,

modem

I
is

the democrat
men

and the con-

said,

Bonaparte represents the Demof business, against the

ocrat, or the party of

stationary or conservative party.

to say,

I omitted then

what

material to the statement, namely

that these two parties differ only as

young and
;

old.

The democrat
vative
is

is

a young conservative

the conseris

an old democrat.

The

aristocrat

the

democrat ripe and gone to seed;

parties stand

because

both

on the one ground of the supreme

Bonaparte

value of property, which one endeavors to get, and

the other to keep.

may

be said to repits

resent the whole history of this party,

its

youth and

age

yes,

and with poetic

justice its fate, in his

own.

The

counter-revolution, the counter-party,

stiU waits for its organ

and representative, in a

244
lover and

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
a

man

of truly public

and universal
favora-

aims.

Here was an experiment, imder the most

conscience.

ble conditions, of the powers of intellect without

Never was such a leader

so

endowed

and

so

weaponed; never leader found such aids

and

followers.

And what was

of these

the result of this vast

talent
cities,

and power,
this

immense armies, burned

It

squandered treasures, immolated millions of

demoralized Europe ?

men, of
result.
tillery,

came

to

no

All passed away like the smoke of his ar-

and

left

no

trace.

He
to

left

France smaller,

poorer, feebler, than he found it;

and the whole

contest for freedom

was

be begun again.

The
it

attempt was in principle suicidal.

France served
long as

him with

life

and limb and

its

estate, as

could identify

interest with

him

but when
;

men

saw that after victory was another war

destruction of armies,

after the

new

conscriptions

and they

who had

toiled so desperately

were never nearer to

the reward,

they could not spend what they had

they
deserted him.

earned, nor repose on their down-beds, nor strut in

their chateaux,

Men

found

that his absorbing egotism was deadly to all other

men.

It resembled the torpedo,

which

inflicts

succession of shocks on any one

it,

who

takes hold of

producing spasms which contract the muscles of

the hand, so that the

man can not open

his fingers

NAPOLEON;

OR,

THE MAN OF THE WORLD.

new and more
and
kills his victim.

245

and the animal

inflicts

violent shocks,

until he paralyzes

So

this ex-

orbitant egotist narrowed, impoverished

and ab-

sorbed the power and existence of those

who served

him

and the universal cry of France and of Eu-

rope in 1814 was, "

Bonaparte.^''
It

Enough

of

him

" " Assez de

was not Bonaparte's

to live
It

fault.

He

did

all that

in

him lay

and thrive without moral

princi-

ple.

was the nature of things, the eternal law

of the world
result, in

of

man and
;

which baulked and ruined

a million experiments, will

him

and the

be the same. Every experiment, by multitudes or by

individuals, that has a sensual
fail.

and

selfish

aim, will

The
is

pacific Fourier will

be as

inefficient as
civiliza-

the pernicious Napoleon.

tion

As

long as our

essentially one of property, of fences, of exit

clusiveness,

will

be mocked by delusions.
;

Our

riches will leave us sick

there will be bitterness in

our laughter, and our wine will burn our mouth.

Only that good

all

profits

which we can
all

taste with

doors open, and which serves

men.

GOETHE;

OR,

THE WEITER.

VII.
t

GOETHE;

OK,

THE WRITER.

FIND a provision in the constitution of the

is

world for the writer, or secretary, who

the doings of the miraculous spirit of
life

to report

that every-

where throbs and works.

of the facts into the mind,

His

office is

a reception
selection of

and then a

the eminent and characteristic experiences.

Nature

will

be reported.

All things are engaged

in writing their history.

The

planet, the pebble,

goes attended by
leaves
its

its

shadow.

The
;

rolling rock

scratches on the mountain

soil;

the river

its

channel in the

the animal
leaf their

its

bones in the

stratum
the coal.

the fern

and

modest epitaph in
its

The

falling drop

makes

sculpture in

the sand or the stone.

Not a

foot steps into the

prints, in characters

snow or along the ground, but

more or

less lasting,

map

of its march.

Every

act of the
his fellows air
is

man
of

inscribes itself in the

his

memories of
face.
;

and in

own manners and

;

The
the

full

sounds

the sky, of tokens

signatures,

ground

is all

memoranda and

and every

250

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

object covered over witli hints which speak to the

intelligent.

In nature,
the narrative

this self-registration is incessant,

is

and

the print of the seal.

fact.

It neither

exceeds nor comes short of the

strives

But nature
is

upward

and, in man, the report

seal.

some-

thing more than print of the

finer

It is a

new and
as

form

of the original.
it

The record

is alive,

that which

recorded

is alive.

In man, the mem-

ory

is

a kind of looking-glass, which, having received

is

the images of surrounding objects,

life,

touched with

and disposes them

lie

in a

new

order.

The

facts

do not
shine
;

in

it

inert

but some subside and others

so that soon

we have a new
to

picture,

comco-

posed of the eminent experiences.

operates.

The man
;

He
for

loves

commimicate

and that

which
until

is

him

to say lies as

a load on his heart

it is

delivered.

But, besides the imiversal

joy of conversation, some

men

are born with exalted

powers for this second creation.

write.

Men

are born to

The gardener
:

saves every slip and seed

to

and

peach-stone
plants.

his vocation is

be a planter of

Not less does the writer attend his affair. Whatever he beholds or experiences, comes to him
as a
it all

model and

sits

for its picture.

He

counts

nonsense that they say, that some things are

undescribable.

He

believes that all that can be

first

thought can be written,

or last

and he would

GOETHE;
report the

OR,

THE WRITER.
it.

251

Holy Ghost, or attempt

to his pen,
is

Nothing
In his

so broad, so subtle, or so dear, but

comes therefore

commended
eyes, a

and he

will write.

man
is

the faculty of reporting,

and the
In

imiverse

the possibility of being reported.

conversation, in calamity, he finds

as our

German
to paint

poet said, "

new materials Some god gave me the

power power

what I

suffer."

He draws

his rents

from rage and pain.

By acting
;

rashly, he buys the

of talking wisely.

Vexations and a tempest

as the

of passion only fiU his sail

writes, "

good Luther

When
:

am

angry, I can pray well and

preach well

" and, if

we knew

the genesis of fine

strokes of eloquence, they might recall the complai-

sance of

Sultan Amurath, who struck off some

Persian heads, that his physician, Vesalius, might

see the

spasms in the muscles of the neck.

or a crisis of passion apprises

His

failures are the preparation of his victories.

A
him
ex-

new thought
oteric,
fact.

that all that he has yet learned

and written

is

is

not the fact, but some rumor of the

What

then?

Does he throw away the pen?

No

he begins again to describe in the new light

which has shined on him,

if,

by some means, he
Nature conspires.

may

yet save some true word.

Whatever can be thought can be spoken, and stiU rises for utterance, though to rude and stammering
organs.
If they cannot

compass

it,

it

waits and

252

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
it

works, until at last

will

moulds them to

its

perfect

and

is

articulated.

This striving after imitative expression, which

one meets every where,
nature, but
is
is

significant of the

aim

of

mere stenography.

There are higher

degrees,
for those

and nature has more splendid endowments

whom

she elects to a superior office

for

the class of scholars or writers,

who

see connection

where the multitude

see fragments,

and who are

impelled to exhibit the facts in order, and so to

supply the axis on which the frame of things turns.

Nature has dearly at heart the formation of the

speculative man, or scholar.
sight of,
things.
It is

an end never

lost

and

is
is

prepared in the original casting of

He

no permissive or accidental appearestates of

ance, but

an organic agent, one of the

the realm, provided

and prepared from of old and

impulses,

from everlasting, in the knitting and contexture

of things.

Presentiments,

cheer him.

There

is

a certain heat in the breast wliich attends

a primary truth, which
is

the perception of

the

shining of the spiritual sun

the

down

into the shaft of

mine.

Every thought which dawns on the

its
it

mind, in the moment of

its

emergence announces
is

own

rank, whether

some whimsy, or
on the other
Soci-

whether

it is

a power.
is,

If he have his incitements, there

side, invitation

and need enough

of his gift.

GOETHE;

OR,

THE WRITER.

253

ety has, at all times, the same want, namely of one

sane

man

with adequate powers of expression to

its

hold up each object of monomania in

tions.
last

right rela-

The ambitious and mercenary bring their

tariff,

new mumbo-jmnbo, whether

its

Texas,
;

rail-

road,

Romanism, mesmerism, or California and, by

relations, easily suc;

detaching the object from

ceed in making- it seen in a glare

and a multitude
to

go

mad

about

it,

and they are not

be reproved
are kept

or cured by the opposite multitude

who

from

this particular insanity

by an equal frenzy on

another crotchet.

But

let

one

man

have the com-

prehensive eye that can replace this isolated prodigy

in its right neighborhood
sion vanishes,

and bearings,

the

illu-

and the returning reason

the

of the com-

munity thanks the reason of the monitor.

The

scholar

is

also wish with other

man of the ages, but he must men to stand well with his conis

temporaries.

But there

a certain ridicule,

among
clerisy,
it.

superficial people,

thrown on the scholars or

which

is

of

no import unless the scholar heed

In
of

this country, the

emphasis of conversation and

public

opinion

commends

the practical

man

and the

solid portion of the

community
circle.

is

with significant respect in every

named Our peo-

ple are of Bonaparte's opinion concerning ideologists.

Ideas are subversive -of social order and

comfort, and at last

make a

fool of the possessor.

254

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
from
Smyrna, or the running up and

It is believed, the ordering a cargo of goods

New York
down

to

to procure a

company

of subscribers to set

a-going five or ten thousand spindles, or the negotiations of a caucus

and the practising on the

prejudices and facility of country-people to secure

their votes in

November,

is

practical

and comhigher

mendable.
If I were to

compare action

of a

much

strain with a life of contemplation, I should not

much confidence in favor of the former. Mankind have such a deej) stake in inward illumination, that there is much to be said by the hermit or monk in defence of his
venture to pronounce with
life of

thought and prayer.

A
if

certain partiality,

a headiness and
all action

loss of balance, is the tax

which

must pay.
peril.

Act,

you

like,

but

you

do

it

at

your

Men's actions are too strong

a

for them.

Show me

man who

has acted and

who

has not been the victim and slave of his action.

What

they have done commits and enforces them to

do the same again.

The

first act,

which was

to

be

an experiment, becomes a sacrament.

The

fiery re-

former embodies his aspiration in some

enant,

rite or cov-

and he and his friends cleave

to the

form and

lose the aspiration.

The Quaker has

established

Quakerism, the Shaker has established his monas.

tery

and

his dance;

and although each prates of

GOETHE;
spirit,

OR,

TEE WRITER.
new things

255
is

there

is

no

spirit,

but repetition, wMcli

his

anti-spiritual.

But where are

of to-

day?
liigher

In actions of enthusiasm this drawback ap-

pears, but in those lower activities, which have

no

aim than
;

to

make

us more comfortable and

more cowardly
steal

in actions of cunning, actions that

and

lie,

actions that divorce the speculative

from the practical faculty and put a ban on reason

and sentiment, there and negation.

is

nothing else but drawback

write in their sacred

The Hindoos

books, " Children only, and not the learned, speak

of the speculative

and the practical

facidties as two.

They are but

one, for both

is

obtain the selfsame

end, and the place which

of the one is gained
Thai:

gained by the followers

other.

by the followers of the

man

seetn,

who

seeth that the speculative

and

the practical doctrines are one."

For great action

must draw on the

of action
is

spiritual nature.

The measure
it

the sentiment from which

proceeds.

The

greatest action

may

easily be

one of the most

private circumstance.

This disparagement will not come from the leaders,

but from inferior persons.

The robust

gentle-

men who

stand at the head of the practical class,

share the ideas of the time, and have too

much
is

sympathy with the speculative

class.

It

not

from men excellent in any kind that disparage-

ment

of

any other

is

to be looked for.

With

such,

256

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
is

Talleyrand's question

ever the main one

? is

not, is

he rich ? he

is

he committed

he well-meaning ? has
is

this or that faculty ? is

he of the establishment ?

he of the movement ?
but, Is he
?

any hody f

does he stand for something

of his kind.

He

must be good

That

is all

that Talleyrand, all that

State-street, all that the

common-sense of mankind
as

asks.

Be
is

real

and admirable, not

we know, but
in

as

you know.

Able men do not care

what kind

man

able, so only that he is able.

master
it

likes

a master, and does not stipulate whether

be

orator, artist, craftsman, or king.

Society has really no graver interest than the

well-being of the literary class.

And

it

is

not to

be denied that

men

are cordial in their recognition

Still

and welcome
ing ground.

of intellectual accomplishments.

the writer does not stand with us on any

commandfault.

I think this to be his

for a pound.

own

pound passes
the

There have been times

when he was a
first

sacred person: he wrote Bibles,

epics, tragic songs,

hymns, the codes, the

Sibylline verses, Chaldean oracles, Laconian sentences, inscribed on temple walls.

true,

Every word was

life.

and woke the nations

to

new

He

wrote

without levity and without choice.

Every word
and the
letters of the

was carved before

sky
;

his eyes into the earth

stars

and the sun and

were only

same purport and of no more

necessity.

But how

; ;

GOETHE;

OR,

THE WRITER.
crowd

257

can he be honored when he does not honor himself

when he

loses

himseK

in the

when he

is

no

longer the lawgiver, but the sycophant, ducking to

the giddy opinion of a reckless public;

when he

must sustain with shameless advocacy some bad

government, or must bark,
opposition
;

all

the year round, in

or write conventional criticism, or prof;

ligate novels

or at any rate write without thought,

to the

and without recurrence by day and by night

sources of inspiration
?

Some

reply to these questions

list

by looking over the

ius in our age.

of

may be furnished men of literary genmore

instructive

Among

these no

name

occurs than that of Goethe to represent the

powers and duties of the scholar or writer.

I described Bonaparte as a representative of the

popular external
century.

life

and aims of the nineteenth

Goethe, a

Its other half, its poet, is

man

quite domesticated in the century, breathing

its air,

enjoying

its

fruits,

impossible at any earlier time,

his colossal parts, the reproach
lie

and taking away, by

of weakness
intellectual

which but for him would

on the

works of the period.

He

appears at a
itself

time when a general culture has spread

has smoothed

and

down

all

sharp individual

traits

when, in the absence of heroic characters, a social

comfort and co-operation have come
in.
;

There

is

no poet, but scores of poetic writers

VOL. IV
17

no Colum-

258

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
post-captains, with transit-

bus, but hundreds of

telescope,

barometer and concentrated soup and pemmican no Demosthenes, no Chatham, but any number of clever parliamentary and forensic de;

baters
ity
;

no prophet or

saint,

but colleges of divinsocieties,

no learned man, but learned

a cheap

press, reading-rooms

and book-clubs without numfacts.

ber.

There was never such a miscellany of

trade.

The world extends itself like American conceive Greek or Roman life, life in
modern
life to

We
;

the Middle

Ages, to be a simple and comprehensible affair but

respect a multitude of things, which

is distracting.

Goethe was the philosopher of

this multiplicity

hundred-handed, Argus-eyed, able and happy to

cope with this rolling miscellany of facts and
ences,
sci-

and by
;

his

own

versatility to dispose of

them
had

with ease

a manly mind, unembarrassed by the

variety of coats of convention with which life

got encrusted, easily able by his subtlety to pierce

these

and

to

draw

his strength
full

from nature, with

which he lived
state, in

in

communion.

What

is

strange too, he lived in a small town, in a petty

a defeated

state,

and in a time when Gerof her sons with

many

played no such leading part in the world's

affairs as to swell the

bosom

any

metropolitan pride, such as might have cheered a

French, or English, or once, a

Roman

or Attic

GOETHE;
genius.

OR,

THE WRITER.

259
limita-

Yet there

is

no trace of provincial

tion in his muse.

He is

not a debtor to his position,

but was born with a free and controlling genius.

The Helena,

or the second part of Faust,

;

is

philosophy of literature set in poetry

the work of

one who found himself the master of histories, mythologies, philosophies, sciences
tures, in the encyclopaedical

and national literamanner in which mod-

ern erudition, with

its

international intercourse of

the whole earth's population, researches into Indian, Etruscan

and

all
;

Cyclopean arts

geology,

chemistry, astronomy

and every one of these king-

ter,

doms assuming a certain aerial and poetic characby reason of the multitude. One looks at a
;

king with reverence

but

if

one should chance to

liber-

be at a congress of kings, the eye would take

ties

with the peculiarities of each.

These are not

wild miraculous songs, but elaborate forms to which

the poet has confided the results of eighty years of
observation.

This reflective and

critical

wisdom
of a

makes the poem more

It dates
itself.

truly the flower of this time.

Still

he

is

a poet,

poet

prouder laurel than any contemporary, and, under

this

plague of microscopes (for he seems to see out

of every pore of his skin), strikes the harp with a

hero's strength

and grace.
of the

The wonder
gence.

book

is

its

superior intelli-

In the menstruum of

this

man's

wit, the

260

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
and modes

past and the present ages, and their religions, politics

of

thinking,

are

dissolved into

archetypes and ideas.

through his head

What new mythologies sail The Greeks said that Alexan;

der went as far as Chaos

other day, as far
;

Goethe went, only the

and one step farther he hazarded,

safe back.

and brought himself

There
tion.
is

a heart-cheering freedom in his specula-

The immense horizon which journeys with

its

us lends

majesty to

trifles

and

to matters of

convenience and necessity, as to solemn and festal

performances.
that

He

was the soul of

his century.

If

was learned, and had become, by population, compact organization and drill of parts, one great
fruits too fast for

Exploring Expedition, accumulating a glut of facts

and

any hitherto-existing savans

to classify,

this

man's mind had ample chambers

all.

for the distribution of

He had
by

a power to

unite the detached atoms again

their

own

law.

He
of

has clothed our

littleness

modern
detail,

existence with poetry.

Amid

and

he detected the Genius

life,

the old

cunning Proteus, nestling close

age was only another of his

beside us, and showed that the dxdness and prose

we

ascribe
:

masks

to the

" His very flight

is

presence in disguise

"
:

that he had put

off

a gay uniform for a fatigue

; ;

GOETHE;
dress,

OR,

THE WRITER.
in

261

and was not a whit

less vivacious or ricli in

Liverpool or the
tioch.

Hague than once

;

Rome

or

An-

He

sought him in public squares and main

and, in the solidsenses,

streets, in

boulevards and hotels

of routine

est

kingdom

and the
;

he showed

the lurking daemonic power

routine, a thread of
self
:

that, in actions of
it-

mythology and fable spins

and

this,

by tracing the pedigree

its

of every

usage and practice, every institution, utensil and

means, home to

origin in the structure of

man.

He
if

had an extreme impatience of conjecture

" I have guesses enough of

and

of rhetoric.

man

write a book, let

him

set

my own down only what

and lowest
writes,

he knows."

He

writes in the plainest

tone, omitting a great deal

more than he

and putting ever a thing

the

for a word.

He

has ex-

plained the distinction between the antique and

modern

spirit

and

art.

He

has defined

art, its

scope and laws.

He

has said the best things about

nature that ever were said.

He

treats nature as

the old philosophers, as the seven wise masters did,

and,
and
ter

with whatever loss of French tabulation

dissection, poetry

and humanity remain

skilL

to us

and they have some doctoral

Eyes are

bet-

on the whole than telescopes or microscopes.

has contributed a key to

He

many

parts of nature,

through the rare turn for unity and simplicity in

his mind.

Thus Goethe suggested the leading idea

262
of
is

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

modern botany, that a leaf or tlie eye of a leaf the unit of botany, and that every part of the
is
;

plant
dition

only a transformed leaf to meet a

new

con-

and, by varying the conditions, a leaf

otljm^

may

be converted into any

organ into a

organ, and any other

leaf. In like manner, in osteology, he assumed that one vertebra of the spine might be

considered as the unit of the skeleton

the head was only the uppermost vertebrae transformed.

:

"

The plant goes from knot

to knot, closing at last

with the flower and the seed.

So the tape-worm,

the caterpillar, goes from knot to knot and closes

with the head.

built

Man

and the higher animals are

vertebrae, the

up through the

powers being
re-

concentrated in the head."

In optics again he

jected the artificial theory of seven colors,

and con-

sidered that every color was the mixture of light

and darkness in new proportions.

very
little

It is really of

consequence what topic he writes upon.

He
He

sees at every pore,

and has a certain gravitawill realize

tion towards truth.

He

what you

say.

hates to be trifled with and to be

made

to say

over again some old wife's fable that has had possession of men's faith these thousand years.

He
sifts

may
it.

as well see

if it is

true as another.
say, to

He

am
?

here, he

would

be the measure and

I take

judge of these things.

Why should

them

on trust

And

therefore what he says of religion,

GOETHE;

OR,

THE WRITER.

263

of passion, of marriage, of manners, of property,

of paper-money, of periods of belief, of omens, of

luck, or whatever else, refuses to be forgotten.

Take
ular use.
in

the most remarkable example that could

occur of this tendency to verify every term in pop-

The Devil had played an important part

all times.

mythology in

Goethe would have no

thing.

word that does not cover a

ure will
still

The same measSo he

be real

serve

" I have never heard of any

crime which I might not have committed."

flies at

the throat of this imp.

;

He

shall

he shall be modern

he shall be European ; he shall

dress like a gentleman,

and accept the manners,

and walk
life of

in the streets,

and be well

initiated in the

Vienna and of Heidelberg

in 1820,

or he

shall not exist.

Accordingly, he stripped him of

mythologic gear, of horns, cloven foot, harpoon

tail,

brimstone and

blue-fire,

and instead of looking

in books

and

pictures, looked for

him

in his

own

mind, in every shade of coldness, selfishness and

unbelief that, in crowds or in solitude, darkens over

the

human

thought,

and

found that the portrait

gained reality and terror by every thing he added

and by every thing he took away.

the essence of this hobgoblin
in

He

found that

which had hovered

shadow about the habitations of men ever since

a tendency,

there were men, was pure intellect, applied,

always there

is

as

to the

service of

264
the senses
:

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
and he flung
into literature, in his

Me-

phistopheles, the first organic figure that has been

added for some ages, and which

as the Prometheus.

will

remain as long

I have no design to enter into any analysis of

his

numerous works.

They

consist of translations,

criticism,

dramas, lyric and every other description

of poems, literary journals

and

portraits of distin-

guished men.
"

Yet I cannot omit to specify the Wilhelm Meister." " Wilhelm Meister " is a novel in every sense,
first

the

of its kind, called

by

its

admirers the only

as
if

delineation of
els,

modern

society,

other nov-

those of Scott for example, dealt with costume

condition, this with the spirit of
veil is still
life.

and

It is a
It is

book over which some

It is preferred

drawn.

read by very intelligent persons with wonder and

delight.

by some such
in
its

to

Hamlet,

as a

work

of genius.

I suppose no book of this

it

century can compare with

delicious sweet-

ness, so new, so provoking to the mind, gratifying

it

with so

many and

so solid

thoughts, just in-

sights into life

and manners and characters; so

life,

many good
unexpected

hints for the conduct of

so

many
very
of

glimpses into a higher sphere, and

never a trace of rhetoric or dulness.

provoldng book to the curiosity of young

genius, but a very unsatisfactory one.

men

Lovers of

GOETHE;
light reading, those

OR,

THE WRITER.
in
it

265

who look

for the enter-

tainment they find in a romance, are disappointed.

On

the other hand, those

who begin
it

it

with the

higher hope to read in

genius,
toils

a worthy history of
to its

and the

just

award of the laurel

and

denials,

have also reason to complain.

here, not long ago,

We

had an English romance

professing to
to unfold
*

embody

the hope of a

new age and

the political hope of the party called

Young

England,'
is

in

which the only reward

of virtue

a seat in Parliament and a peerage.

Goethe's romance has a conclusion as lame and

immoral.

George Sand, in Consuelo and

In the progress of the

its

con-

tinuation, has sketched a truer

picture.

and more dignified

story, the char-

acters of the hero

and heroine expand

at a rate

that shivers the porcelain chess-table of aristocratic

convention:
their

they quit the society and habits of

rank, they lose their wealth, they become

the servants of great ideas

and

of the

most gen-

erous social ends; until at last the hero,

who

is

the centre and fountain of an association for the

rendering of the noblest benefits to the

race,
it

no longer answers to his own

titled

human name
"I

sounds foreign and remote in his ear.

am

only man," he says;

"I

breathe and work for

sacrifices.

man

"

and

this in

poverty and extreme

Goethe's hero, on the contrary, has so

many weak-

266
nesses

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
and impurities and keeps such bad comtranslated, were disgusted.

pany, that the sober English public, when the

book was
is

And

yet

it

so

crammed with wisdom, with knowledge

of

the world and with knowledge of laws; the persons so truly and subtly drawn, and with such few
strokes,

and not a word too much,

go
it

the
it

book

re-

mains ever so new and unexhausted, that we must

even
let it
its

way and be

willing to get

what

good from

we

can, assured

that

has only

begun
serve.

its

office

and has millions

of readers yet to

The argument
sense.

is

the passage of a democrat to

in

the aristocracy, using both words

their best

And

this passage is not

made

in

any mean Na-

or creeping way, but through the hall door.

ture and character assist, and the rank
real
is

made
gen-

by

sense

and probity in the

nobles.

No

erous youth can escape this charm of reality in

the book, so that
lect
it is

highly stimulating to

intel-

and courage.
the
ro-

The ardent and holy Novalis characterized book as " thoroughly modern and prosaic the
;

mantic

is

completely levelled in

it; so is

the potreats

etry of nature; the wonderful.

The book

only of the ordinary affairs of

icized civic

men

it

is

a poet-

and domestic

story.

The wonderful

in

it

is

expressly treated as fiction and enthusi-

GOETHE;
astic

OR,

THE WRITER.
yet,

267

dreaming "

and

what

is

also charac-

teristic,
it

Novalis soon returned to this book, and

remained his favorite reading to the end of his

life.

What
English

distinguishes

Goethe for

French

and

readers

is

a property which he shares

habitual reference to interior
in

with his nation,

truth.

a
;

In England and
and,

America there

is

respect for talent

of

if it is

exerted in support

any ascertained or

intelligible interest or party,

is satis-

or in regular opposition to any, the public

fied.

In France there

is

even a greater delight

its

in intellectual brilliancy for in

own

sake.

And
from
is oc-

aU these

coimtries,

men
if

of talent write

talent.

It is

enough

the understanding

cupied, the taste propitiated,

so

so

many

columns,

many

hours, filled

in a lively
intellect

and creditable

way.

The German

wants the French

understanding of
;

sprightliness, the

fine practical

the English, and the

American adventure

but

it

has a certain probity, which never rests in a superficial

performance, but asks steadily. To what

end?
is it

German
Here
is

public

asks for a controlling

sincerity.

activity of thought; but

for ?

What

does the

man mean ?
writer.

what Whence,
There

whence

all these

thoughts ?

Talent alone can not

make a

must be a man behind the book; a personality

268

REPRESENTATIVE MEN,
to the docto see

which by birth and quality is pledged trines there set forth, and which exists
state things so,

and

and not otherwise

holding things

because they are things.

If he cannot rightly

express himself to-day, the same things subsist

and

will

open themselves to-morrow.

There

lies

the burden on his mind,

to be declared,

the
less

burden of truth
;

more or

understood

and

it

constitutes his business

to

and

calling

in the world

see

those facts through,

and

to

make them

known.
his

What

signifies that

he trips and stam-

mers; that his

voice, is

harsh or hissing; that

are inadequate?

method or

his tropes

That
would

message will find

method and imagery,

articulation
it

and melody.
speak.
in

Though he were dumb

If not,

the man,

what care we how

he
is ?

if

there be no such God's

adroit,

word

how

fluent,

how
It

brilliant

makes a great

difference to the force of

any

sentence whether there be a

man behiad

it

or no.

In the learned journal, in the

ble shadow

influential news-

paper, I discern no form; only some irresponsi;

oftener some

moneyed

corporation, or

some dangler who hopes,

in the

mask and

robes of

his paragraph, to pass for somebody.

But through
his

every clause and part of speech of a right book I

meet the eyes of the most determined of men

force

and terror inundate every word ; the commas

GOETHE;
and dashes are
alive
;

OR,

THE WRITER.
live long.

269

so that the writing is athletic

and nimble,

can go far and

In England and America, one may be an adept

in the writings of a

Greek or Latin

poet, without

any poetic

taste or fire.

That a man has spent

years on Plato and Proclus, does not afford a pre-

sumption that he holds heroic opinions, or undervalues the fashions of his town.

But the German

nation have the most ridiculous good faith on these

subjects
:

the student, out of the lecture-room,

;

still

broods on the lessons

and the professor can not

divest himself of the fancy that the truths of phi-

losophy have some application to Berlin and

nich.

Muthe

This earnestness enables them

of

to

outsee
all

men

much more

talent.

Hence almost

valuable distinctions which are current in higher

conversation have been derived to us from Ger-

But whUst men distinguished for wit and learning, in England and France, adopt their study
many.

and

their side with a certain levity,

to

and are not

from

understood

be

very

deeply

engaged,

grounds of character,
espouse,

to the topic or the part they

Goethe, the head and body of

from
talent,
:

the Ger-

man

nation, does not speak

but the

truth shines through

he

is

very wise, though his

talent often veils his wisdom.

his sentence
is,

However

excellent

he has somewhat better in view.

It

awakens

my

curiosity.

He

has the formidable

270

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
:

independence which converse with truth gives

hear you, or forbear, his fact abides
;

and your

in-

terest in the writer is not confined to his story

and

he dismissed from memory when he has performed

his task creditably, as a

baker when he has

left his

loaf

but his work

is

the least part of him.

The

old Eternal Genius

fided

who

built the world has con-

himseK more

to this

man than

to

any

other.

I dare not say that Goethe ascended to the highest

grounds from which genius has spoken.

He

has not worshipped the highest unity ; he

is inca-

pable of a self-surrender to the moral sentiment.

There are nobler strains in poetry than any he has

Bounded.
tone
is

There are writers poorer His

in talent,

whose

purer and more touches the heart.

is

Goethe

can never be dear to men.

devotion to pure truth
culture.
;

not even the

but to truth for the sake of

He
:

has no aims less large than the con-

quest of universal nature, of universal truth, to be

his portion

a
;

man

not to be bribed, nor deceived,

nor overawed
denial,

of a stoical

seK-command and seKmen,

and having one

f
;

test for all

What

can you teach me

All possessions are valued by

rank, privileges, health, time,

him

for that only

itself.
is

Being

He

the type of culture, the amateur of all arts

;

and sciences and events

spiritual,

artistic,

but not
is

artist

but not

spiritualist.

There

nothing ho

GOETHE;
had not right
to

OR,
:

THE WRITER.
is

271

know

there

no weapon in the

armory of universal genius he did not take into

his hand, but with

peremptory heed that he should

prejudiced by his instruments.

not be for a

moment

He

lays a ray of light

under every

fact,

and be-

tween himseK and his dearest property.

From

him nothing was

hid, nothing withholden.

lurking daemons sat to him, and the saint

The who saw

the daemons; and the metaphysical elements took

form.

" Piety

itself is

no aim, but only a means

at-

whereby through purest inward peace we may

tain to highest culture."

And

his penetration of

every secret of the fine arts will

make Goethe

still

more statuesque.

His

affections help him, like wo-

men employed by
conspirators.

Cicero to

worm

out the secret of

Enmities he has none.

be,

him you may

Enemy

of

if

so

you

shall teach
it

him aught

which your good-will cannot, were

only what ex-

perience will accrue from your ruin.

Enemy and

welcome, but enemy on high terms.

hate any body
;

He

cannot

his time is

worth too much.

Tem-

peramental antagonisms
feuds of emperors,

may be who fight

suffered, but like

dignifiedly across

kingdoms.

His autobiography, under the

title

of " Poetry

and Truth out

the idea,

of

now familiar

my

Life,"

is

the expression of

to the

world through the

German mind, but a

novelty to England, Old and

272

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.

that a man exNew, when that book appeared, ists for culture not for what he can accomplish,
;

is

but for what can be accomplished in him.

reaction of things on the

The

man

the only notesee him-

worthy
self as

result.

An

intellectual
;

man can

a third person
interest

therefore his faults

and de-

lusions

him equally with

history

his successes.

Though he wishes more to know the

to prosper in affairs, he wishes

and destiny of man

whilst the clouds of egotists drifting about

him

are only interested in a low success.

This idea reigns in the "Dichtung und

heit "

Wahr-

and

directs the selection of the

incidents

and nowise the external importance of events, the rank of the personages, or the bidk of incomes. Of
course the book affords slender materials for what would be reckoned with us a " Life of Goethe "
;

few

dates,

no correspondence, no

details of offices
;

or employments, no light on his marriage

and a
sunk

period of ten years, that should be the most active

in his
life,

after his settlement at

Weimar,

is

in silence.

Meantime

certain love-affairs that

came

to nothing, as people say, have the strangest impor-

tance

he crowds us with details

certain whimown
:

sical opinions,

cosmogonies and religions of his

invention,

and

especially his relations to remarkato critical epochs of thought

ble

minds and

these he magnifies.

His " Daily and Yearly Jour-

GOETHE;
nal,"
his

OR,

THE WRITER,
his "

273
in

" Italian

Travels,"

Campaign
last,

France "

and the historical part of his " Theory of

In the he

Colors," have the same interest.

rapidly notices Kepler, Roger Bacon, Galileo,

ton, Voltaire, &c.
;

New-

and the charm of

this portion of

the book consists in the simplest statement of the

relation betwixt these grandees of
tific

European

scien-

history

and himseK
to

the mere drawing of the

lines

from Goethe
from Goethe
is,

to Kepler,

from Goethe

to

Ba-

con,
line

Newton.

The drawing

of the

and person, a solution of the formidable problem, and gives pleasure when Iphfor the time

igenia

and Faust do

not, without

any

cost of inven-

tion comparable to that of Iphigenia

and Faust.

This lawgiver of art

that he
scopic

is

not an

artist.

Was

it

knew

too much, that his sight was microjust perspective, the

;

and interfered with the

?

seeing of the whole

of occasional
tences.

He

is

fragmentary

a writer
sen-

poems and
he
sits

of

an encyclopaedia of
to write a

drama or a from a and sorts his observations collects tale, he hundred sides, and combines them into the body as

When

down

fitly

as he can.
:

great deal refuses to incorpoletters of the parties,

rate

tliis

he adds loosely as

leaves from their journals, or the like.

great

deal

still is left

that will not find any place.

;

This

the bookbinder alone can give any cohesion to

and
his

hence, notwithstanding the looseness of

VOL. IT.
18

many of

274
works,

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
we have volumes
of detaclied paragraphs,

aphorisms, Xenien^ &c.

I suppose the worldly tone of his tales grew out
of the calculations of self-culture.
firmity of an admirable
scholar,

It

was the

in-

who loved
savans and

the

world out of gratitude

who knew where

libraries,
lei-

galleries, architecture, laboratories,

sure,

were to be had, and who did not quite trust

Soc-

the compensations of poverty and nakedness.

rates loved

Athens

Montaigne, Paris

and Ma-

dame de
pect.

Stael said she was only vulnerable on that

It has its favorable as-

side (namely, of Paris).

All the geniuses are usually so ill-assorted

is

and
else.

sicldy that one

ever wishing them somewhere

is

We

seldom see any body who

live.

not uneasy

or afraid to

There

is

a slight blush of shame

on the cheek of good men and aspiring men, and a

spice of caricature.

But

this

man was

entirely at

home and happy in his century and the world. None was so fit to live, or more heartily enjoyed
the game.

In this aim of culture, which

is their

is

the

genius of his works,

power.

The

idea of
to

absolute, eternal truth, without reference

my
but

own enlargement by

it, is

higher.

The surrender
is

to the torrent of poetic inspiration

higher

compared with any motives on which books are

written in England and America, this
is

very truth,
truth.

and has the power

to inspire

which belongs to

GOETHE;

OR,

THE WRITER.

275

Thus has he brought back to a book some of its ancient might and dignity. Goethe, coming into an over-civilized time and
country,

when

original talent

was oppressed imder

the load of books and mechanical auxiliaries the distracting variety of claims, taught
to dispose of this
it

and

mountainous miscellany

men how and make

subservient.

I join Napoleon with him, as being

both representatives of the impatience and reaction

of nature against the

morgue

of conventions,

two
and

stern realists, who, with their scholars, have severally set the axe at the root of the tree of cant

seeming, for this time and for

ful laborer, with
tion,

all time.

This cheer-

no external popularity or provoca-

drawing

his motive

and

his plan

from

his

own

breast, tasked

himseK with
rest,

stints for

a giant, and

without relaxation or
liis

except by alternating

pursuits,

worked on for eighty years with the

steadiness of his first zeal.

It is the last lesson of

modern
is

science that the

highest simplicity of structure

produced, not by

few elements, but by the highest complexity.

is

Man

the most composite of all creatures

the wheel-

insect,

volvox glohator.,

is

at the other extreme.

We
the
ages.

shall learn to

draw rents and revenues from

of the old

immense patrimony

and the recent

of all

Goethe teaches courage, and the equivalence times ; that the disadvantages of any epoch

276
exist

REPRESENTATIVE MEN.
only to the
faint-hearted.

Genius hovers

with his sunshine and music close by the darkest

and deafest
hold on

eras.

No

mortgage, no attainder, wiU

men

or hours.

The world

is

young

the

former great

men

call to

us affectionately.

We

too must write Bibles, to unite again the heavens

and the earthly world.

suffer

The

secret of genius is to
;

no

fiction to exist for us

;

to realize all that

we know

in the high refinement of

modern

life,

in arts, in sciences, in books, in men, to exact

faith, reality

good
midst

and a purpose

and

first, last,

and without end,

to honor every truth

by

use.

r-^i

22r

:?Si

II

^-