Chapter 14

32. _Reputation_ is but a synonyme of _popularity_; dependent on suffrage, to be increased or diminished at the will of the voters. It is the creature, so to speak, of its particular age, or rather of a particular state of society; consequently, dying with that which sustained it. Hence we can scarcely go over a page of history, that we do not, as in a church-yard, tread upon some buried reputation. But fame cannot be voted down, having its immediate foundation in the essential. It is the eternal shadow of excellence, from which it can never be separated; nor is it ever made visible but in the light of an intellect kindred with that of its author. It is that light which projects the shadow which is seen of the multitude, to be wondered at and reverenced, even while so little comprehended as to be often confounded with the substance,--the substance being admitted from the shadow, as a matter of faith. It is the economy of Providence to provide such lights: like rising and setting stars, they follow each other through successive ages: and thus the monumental form of Genius stands for ever relieved against its own imperishable shadow.

33. All excellence of every kind is but variety of truth. If we wish, then, for something beyond the true, we wish for that which is false. According to this test, how little truth is there in Art! Little indeed! but how much is that little to him who feels it!

34. Fame does not depend on the _will_ of any man, but Reputation may be given or taken away. Fame is the sympathy of kindred intellects, and sympathy is not a subject of _willing_; while Reputation, having its source in the popular voice, is a sentence which may either be uttered or suppressed at pleasure. Reputation, being essentially contemporaneous, is always at the mercy of the envious and the ignorant; but Fame, whose very birth is _posthumous_, and which is only known _to exist by the echo of its footsteps through congenial minds_, can neither be increased nor diminished by any degree of will.

35. What _light_ is in the natural world, such is _fame_ in the intellectual; both requiring an _atmosphere_ in order to become perceptible. Hence the fame of Michael Angelo is, to some minds, a nonentity; even as the sun itself would be invisible _in vacuo_.

36. Fame has no necessary conjunction with Praise: it may exist without the breath of a word; it is a _recognition of excellence_, which _must be felt_, but need not be _spoken_. Even the envious must feel it,--feel it, and hate it, in silence.

37. I cannot believe that any man who deserved fame ever labored for it; that is, _directly_. For, as fame is but the contingent of excellence, it would be like an attempt to project a shadow, before its substance was obtained. Many, however, have so fancied. "I write, I paint, for fame," has often been repeated: it should have been, "I write, I paint, for reputation." All anxiety, therefore, about Fame should be placed to the account of Reputation.

38. A man may be pretty sure that he has not attained _excellence_, when it is not all in all to him. Nay, I may add, that, if he looks beyond it, he has not reached it. This is not the less true for being good _Irish_.

39. An original mind is rarely understood, until it has been _reflected_ from some half-dozen congenial with it, so averse are men to admitting the _true_ in an unusual form; whilst any novelty, however fantastic, however false, is greedily swallowed. Nor is this to be wondered at; for all truth demands a response, and few people care to _think_, yet they must have something to supply the place of thought. Every mind would appear original, if every man had the power of _projecting_ his own into the mind of others.

40. All effort at originality must end either in the quaint or the monstrous. For no man knows himself as an original; he can only believe it on the report of others to whom _he is made known_, as he is by the projecting power before spoken of.

41. There is one thing which no man, however generously disposed, can _give_, but which every one, however poor, is bound to _pay_. This is Praise. He cannot give it, because it is not his own,--since what is dependent for its very existence on something in another can never become to him a _possession_; nor can he justly withhold it, when the presence of merit claims it as a _consequence_. As praise, then, cannot be made a _gift_, so, neither, when not his due, can any man receive it: he may think he does, but he receives only _words_; for _desert_ being the essential condition of praise, there can be no reality in the one without the other. This is no fanciful statement; for, though praise may be withheld by the ignorant or envious, it cannot be but that, in the course of time, an existing merit will, on _some one_, produce its effects; inasmuch as the existence of any cause without its effect is an impossibility. A fearful truth lies at the bottom of this, an _irreversible justice_ for the weal or woe of him who confirms or violates it.

* * * * *

[From the back of a pencil sketch.]

Let no man trust to the gentleness, the generosity, or seeming goodness of his heart, in the hope that they alone can safely bear him through the temptations of this world. This is a state of probation, and a perilous passage to the true beginning of life, where even the best natures need continually to be reminded of their weakness, and to find their only security in steadily referring all their thoughts, acts, affections, to the ultimate end of their being: yet where, imperfect as we are, there is no obstacle too mighty, no temptation too strong, to the truly humble in heart, who, distrusting themselves, seek to be sustained only by that holy Being who is life and power, and who, in his love and mercy, has promised to give to those that ask.--Such were my reflections, to which I was giving way on reading this melancholy story.

If he is satisfied with them, he may rest assured that he is neither fitted for this world nor the next. Even in this, there are wrongs and sorrows which no human remedy can reach;--no, tears cannot restore what is lost.

* * * * *

[Written in a book of sketches, with a pencil.]

A real debt of gratitude--that is, founded on a disinterested act of kindness--cannot be cancelled by any subsequent unkindness on the part of our benefactor. If the favor be of a pecuniary nature, we may, indeed, by returning an equal or greater sum, balance the moneyed part; but we cannot _liquidate_ the _kind motive_ by the setting off against it any number of unkind ones. For an after injury can no more _undo_ a previous kindness, than we can _prevent_ in the future what has happened in the past. So neither can a good act undo an ill one: a fearful truth! For good and evil have a moral _life_, which nothing in time can extinguish; the instant they _exist_, they start for Eternity. How, then, can a man who has _once_ sinned, and who has not of _himself_ cleansed his soul, be fit for heaven where no sin can enter? I seek not to enter into the mystery of the _atonement_, "which even the angels sought to comprehend and could not"; but I feel its truth in an unutterable conviction, and that, without it, all flesh must perish. Equally deep, too, and unalienable, is my conviction that "the fruit of sin is misery." A second birth to the soul is therefore a necessity which sin _forces_ upon us. Ay,--but not against the desperate _will_ that rejects it.

This conclusion was not anticipated when I wrote the first sentence of the preceding paragraph. But it does not surprise me. For it is but a recurrence of what I have repeatedly experienced; namely, that I never lighted on _any truth_ which I _inwardly felt_ as such, however apparently remote from our religious being, (as, for instance, in the philosophy of my art,) that, by following it out, did not find its illustration and confirmation in some great doctrine of the Bible,--the only true philosophy, the sole fountain of light, where the dark questions of the understanding which have so long stood, like chaotic spectres, between the fallen soul and its reason, at once lose their darkness and their terror.

The Hypochondriac.[4]

He would not taste, but swallowed life at once; And scarce had reached his prime ere he had bolted, With all its garnish, mixed of sweet and sour, Full fourscore years. For he, in truth, did wot not What most he craved, and so devoured all; Then, with his gases, followed Indigestion, Making it food for night-mares and their foals.

_Bridgen_.[5]

It was the opinion of an ancient philosopher, that we can have no want for which Nature does not provide an appropriate gratification. As it regards our physical wants, this appears to be true. But there are moral cravings which extend beyond the world we live in; and, were we in a heathen age, would serve us with an unanswerable argument for the immortality of the soul. That these cravings are felt by all, there can be no doubt; yet that all feel them in the same degree would be as absurd to suppose, as that every man possesses equal sensibility or understanding. Boswell's desires, from his own account, seem to have been limited to reading Shakspeare in the other world,--whether with or without his commentators, he has left us to guess; and Newton probably pined for the sight of those distant stars whose light has not yet reached us. What originally was the particular craving of my own mind I cannot now recall; but that I had, even in my boyish days, an insatiable desire after something which always eluded me, I well remember. As I grew into manhood, my desires became less definite; and by the time I had passed through college, they seemed to have resolved themselves into a general passion for _doing_.

It is needless to enumerate the different subjects which one after another engaged me. Mathematics, metaphysics, natural and moral philosophy, were each begun, and each in turn given up in a passion of love and disgust.

It is the fate of all inordinate passions to meet their extremes; so was it with mine. Could I have pursued any of these studies with moderation, I might have been to this day, perhaps, both learned and happy. But I could be moderate in nothing. Not content with being employed, I must always be _busy_; and business, as every one knows, if long continued, must end in fatigue, and fatigue in disgust, and disgust in change, if that be practicable,--which unfortunately was my case.

The restlessness occasioned by these half-finished studies brought on a severe fit of self-examination. Why is it, I asked myself, that these learned works, which have each furnished their authors with sufficient excitement to effect their completion, should thus weary me before I get midway into them? It is plain enough. As a reader I am merely a recipient, but the composer is an active agent; a vast difference! And now I can account for the singular pleasure, which a certain bad poet of my acquaintance always took in inflicting his verses on every one who would listen to him; each perusal being but a sort of mental echo of the original bliss of composition. I will set about writing immediately.

Having, time out of mind, heard the epithet _great_ coupled with Historians, it was that, I believe, inclined me to write a history. I chose my subject, and began collating, and transcribing, night and day, as if I had not another hour to live; and on I went with the industry of a steam-engine; when it one day occurred to me, that, though I had been laboring for months, I had not yet had occasion for one original thought. Pshaw! said I, 't is only making new clothes out of old ones. I will have nothing more to do with history.

As it is natural for a mind suddenly disgusted with mechanic toil to seek relief from its opposite, it can easily be imagined that my next resource was Poetry. Every one rhymes now-a-days, and so can I. Shall I write an Epic, or a Tragedy, or a Metrical Romance? Epics are out of fashion; even Homer and Virgil would hardly be read in our time, but that people are unwilling to admit their schooling to have been thrown away. As to Tragedy, I am a modern, and it is a settled thing that no modern _can_ write a tragedy; so I must not attempt that. Then for Metrical Romances,--why, they are now manufactured; and, as the Edinburgh Review says, may be "imported" by us "in bales." I will bind myself to no particular class, but give free play to my imagination. With this resolution I went to bed, as one going to be inspired. The morning came; I ate my breakfast, threw up the window, and placed myself in my elbow-chair before it. An hour passed, and nothing occurred to me. But this I ascribed to a fit of laughter that seized me, at seeing a duck made drunk by eating rum-cherries. I turned my back on the window. Another hour followed, then another, and another: I was still as far from poetry as ever; every object about me seemed bent against my abstraction; the card-racks fascinating me like serpents, and compelling me to read, as if I would get them by heart, "Dr. Joblin," "Mr. Cumberback," "Mr. Milton Bull," &c. &c. I took up my pen, drew a sheet of paper from my writing-desk, and fixed my eyes upon that;--'t was all in vain; I saw nothing on it but the watermark, _D. Ames_. I laid down the pen, closed my eyes, and threw my head back in the chair. "Are you waiting to be shaved, Sir?" said a familiar voice. I started up, and overturned my servant. "No, blockhead!"--"I am waiting to be inspired";--but this I added mentally. What is the cause of my difficulty? said I. Something within me seemed to reply, in the words of Lear, "Nothing comes of nothing." Then I must seek a subject. I ran over a dozen in a few minutes, chose one after another, and, though twenty thoughts very readily occurred on each, I was fain to reject them all; some for wanting pith, some for belonging to prose, and others for having been worn out in the service of other poets. In a word, my eyes began to open on the truth, and I felt convinced that _that_ only was poetry which a man writes because he cannot help writing; the irrepressible effluence of his secret being on every thing in sympathy with it,--a kind of _flowering_ of the soul amid the warmth and the light of nature. I am no poet, I exclaimed, and I will not disfigure Mr. Ames with commonplace verses.

I know not how I should have borne this second disappointment, had not the title of a new Novel, which then came into my head, suggested a trial in that branch of letters. I will write a Novel. Having come to this determination, the next thing was to collect materials. They must be sought after, said I, for my late experiment has satisfied me that I might wait for ever in my elbow-chair, and they would never come to me; they must be toiled for,--not in books, if I would not deal in second-hand,--but in the world, that inexhaustible storehouse of all kinds of originals. I then turned over in my mind the various characters I had met with in life; amongst these a few only seemed fitted for any story, and those rather as accessories; such as a politician who hated popularity, a sentimental grave-digger, and a metaphysical rope-dancer; but for a hero, the grand nucleus of my fable, I was sorely at a loss. This, however, did not discourage me. I knew he might be found in the world, if I would only take the trouble to look for him. For this purpose I jumped into the first stage-coach that passed my door; it was immaterial whither bound, my object being men, not places. My first day's journey offered nothing better than a sailor who rebuked a member of Congress for swearing. But at the third stage, on the second day, as we were changing horses, I had the good fortune to light on a face which gave promise of all I wanted. It was so remarkable that I could not take my eyes from it; the forehead might have been called handsome but for a pair of enormous eyebrows, that seemed to project from it like the quarter-galleries of a ship, and beneath these were a couple of small, restless, gray eyes, which, glancing in every direction from under their shaggy brows, sparkled like the intermittent light of fire-flies; in the nose there was nothing remarkable, except that it was crested by a huge wart with a small grove of black hairs; but the mouth made ample amends, being altogether indescribable, for it was so variable in its expression, that I could not tell whether it had most of the sardonic, the benevolent, or the sanguinary, appearing to exhibit them all in succession with equal vividness. My attention, however, was mainly fixed by the sanguinary; it came across me like an east wind, and I felt a cold sweat damping my linen; and when this was suddenly succeeded by the benevolent, I was sure I had got at the secret of his character,--no less than that of a murderer haunted by remorse. Delighted with this discovery, I made up my mind to follow the owner of the face wherever he went, till I should learn his history. I accordingly made an end of my journey for the present, upon learning that the stranger was to pass some time in the place where we stopped. For three days I made minute inquiries; but all I could gather was, that he had been a great traveller, though of what country no one could tell me. On the fourth day, finding him on the move, I took passage in the same coach. Now, said I, is my time of harvest. But I was mistaken; for, in spite of all the lures which I threw out to draw him into a communicative humor, I could get nothing from him but monosyllables. So far from abating my ardor, this reserve only the more whetted my curiosity. At last we stopped at a pleasant village in New Jersey. Here he seemed a little better known; the innkeeper inquiring after his health, and the hostler asking if the balls he had supplied him with fitted the barrels of his pistols. The latter inquiry I thought was accompanied by a significant glance, that indicated a knowledge on the hostler's part of more than met the ear; I determined therefore to sound him. After a few general remarks, that had nothing to do with any thing, by way of introduction, I began by hinting some random surmises as to the use to which the stranger might have put the pistols he spoke of; inquired whether he was in the habit of loading them at night; whether he slept with them under his pillow; if he was in the practice of burning a light while he slept; and if he did not sometimes awake the family by groans, or by walking with agitated steps in his chamber. But it was all in vain, the man protesting that he never knew any thing ill of him. Perhaps, thought I, the hostler having overheard his midnight wanderings, and detected his crime, is paid for keeping the secret. I pumped the landlord, and the landlady, and the barmaid, and the chambermaid, and the waiters, and the cook, and every thing that could speak in the house; still to no purpose, each ending his reply with, "Lord, Sir, he's as honest a gentleman, for aught I know, as any in the world"; then would come a question,--"But perhaps _you_ know something of him yourself?" Whether my answer, though given in the negative, was uttered in such a tone as to imply an affirmative, thereby exciting suspicion, I cannot tell; but it is certain that I soon after perceived a visible change towards him in the deportment of the whole household. When he spoke to the waiters, their jaws fell, their fingers spread, their eyes rolled, with every symptom of involuntary action; and once, when he asked the landlady to take a glass of wine with him, I saw her, under pretence of looking out of the window, throw it into the street; in short, the very scullion fled at his approach, and a chambermaid dared not enter his room unless under guard of a large mastiff. That these circumstances were not unobserved by him will appear by what follows.

Though I had come no nearer to facts, this general suspicion, added to the remarkable circumstance that no one had ever heard his name (being known only as _the gentleman_) gave every day new life to my hopes. He is the very man, said I; and I began to revel in all the luxury of detection, when, as I was one night undressing for bed, my attention was caught by the following letter on my table.

"SIR,

"If you are the gentleman you would be thought, you will not refuse satisfaction for the diabolical calumnies you have so unprovokedly circulated against an innocent man.

"Your obedient servant,

"TIMOLEON BUB.

"P.S. I shall expect you at five o'clock to-morrow morning, at the three elms, by the river-side."

This invitation, as may be well imagined, discomposed me not a little. Who Mr. Bub was, or in what way I had injured him, puzzled me exceedingly. Perhaps, thought I, he has mistaken me for another person; if so, my appearing on the ground will soon set matters right. With this persuasion I went to bed, somewhat calmer than I should otherwise have been; nay, I was even composed enough to divert myself with the folly of one bearing so vulgar an appellation taking it into his head to play the _man of honor_, and could not help a waggish feeling of curiosity to see if his name and person were in keeping.