Part 17
[588] TURˊ-BU-LENT, riotous; disorderly.
[589] CON-TEMˊ-PO-RA-NEOUS, living or existing at the same time.
[590] IN-CUMˊ-BENT, one who holds an office.
[591] TRA-ˊDI-TION, the history or account handed down from one to another.
LXXXVIII.—LABOR AND GENIUS
SYDNEY SMITH.
Sydney Smith was born in 1791, and died in 1845. His miscellaneous writings, comprising essays, reviews, and occasional pieces, are characterized by a happy combination of strong sense and brilliant wit.
1. The prevailing idea with young people has been, the incompatibility[592] of labor and genius; and, therefore, from the fear of being thought dull, they have thought it necessary to remain ignorant. I have seen, at school and at college, a great many young men completely destroyed by having been so unfortunate as to produce an excellent copy of verses. Their genius being now established, all that remained for them to do, was to act up to the dignity of the character; and as this dignity consisted in reading nothing new, in forgetting what they had already read, and in pretending to be acquainted with all subjects by a sort of off-hand exertion of talents, they soon collapsed[593] into the most frivolous and insignificant of men.
2. It would be an extremely profitable thing to draw up a short and well-authenticated account of the habits of study of the most celebrated writers with whose style of literary industry we happen to be most acquainted. It would go very far to destroy the absurd and pernicious[594] association of genius and idleness, by showing that the greatest poets, orators, statesmen, and historians—men of the most brilliant and imposing talents—have actually labored as hard as the makers of dictionaries and the arrangers of indexes; and that the most obvious reason why they have been superior to other men is, that they have taken more pains than other men.
3. Gibbon was in his study every morning, winter and summer, at six o’clock: Burke was the most laborious and indefatigable[595] of human beings: Leibnitz[596] was never out of his library: Pascal killed himself by study: Cicero narrowly escaped death from the same cause: Milton was at his books with as much regularity as a merchant or an attorney; he had mastered all the knowledge of his time: so had Homer. Raphael lived but thirty-seven years; and in that short space carried the art of painting so far beyond what it had before reached, that he appears to stand alone as a model to his successors.
4. There are instances to the contrary; but, generally speaking, the life of all truly great men has been a life of intense and incessant[597] labor. They have commonly passed the first half of life in the gross darkness of indigent humility—overlooked, mistaken, contemned by weaker men,—thinking while others slept, reading while others rioted, feeling something within them that told them they should not always be kept down among the dregs of the world; and then, when their time has come, and some little accident has given them their first occasion, they have burst out into the light and glory of public life, rich with the spoils of time, and mighty in all the labors and struggles of the mind.
5. Then do the multitude cry out, “A miracle of genius!” Yes, he is a miracle of genius, because he is a miracle of labor; because, instead of trusting to the resources of his own single mind, he has ransacked a thousand minds; because he makes use of the accumulation of ages, and takes, as his point of departure, the very last line and boundary to which science has advanced; because it has ever been the object of his life to assist every intellectual gift of nature, however munificent,[598] and however splendid, with every resource that art could suggest, and every attention diligence could bestow.
6. But, while I am descanting[599] upon the conduct of the understanding, and the best mode of acquiring knowledge, some men may be disposed to ask, “Why conduct my understanding with such endless care? and what is the use of so much knowledge?” What is the use of so much knowledge? What is the use of so much life? What are we to do with the seventy years of existence allotted to us? and how are we to live them out to the last?
7. I solemnly declare that, but for the love of knowledge, I should consider the life of the meanest hedger and ditcher as preferable to that of the greatest and richest man in existence; for the fire of our minds is like the fire which the Persians burn on the mountains: it flames night and day, and is immortal, and not to be quenched! Upon something it must act and feed—upon the pure spirit of knowledge, or upon the foul dregs of polluting passions.
8. Therefore, when I say, in conducting your understanding, love knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, with a love coeval[600] with life, what do I say but love innocence, love virtue, love purity of conduct, love that which, if you are rich and great, will vindicate the blind fortune which has made you so, and make men call it justice; love that which, if you are poor, will render your poverty respectable, and make the proudest feel it unjust to laugh at the meanness of your fortunes; love that which will comfort you, adorn you and never quit you,—which will open to you the kingdom of thought, and all the boundless regions of conceptions, as an asylum against the cruelty, the injustice, and the pain that may be your lot in the outer world,—that which will make your motives habitually great and honorable, and light up in an instant a thousand noble disdains at the very thought of meanness and of fraud.
9. Therefore, if any young man have embarked his life in pursuit of knowledge, let him go on without doubting or fearing the event; let him not be intimidated by the cheerless beginnings of knowledge, by the darkness from which she springs, by the difficulties which hover around her, by the wretched habitations in which she dwells, by the want and sorrow which sometimes journey in her train; but let him ever follow her as the Angel that guards him, and as the Genius of his life. She will bring him out at last into the light of day, and exhibit him to the world comprehensive in acquirements, fertile in resources, rich in imagination, strong in reasoning, prudent and powerful above his fellows in all the relations and in all the offices of his life.
[592] IN-COM-PAT-I-BILˊ-I-TY, state or quality of a thing which prevents it from harmonizing with something else; inconsistency; disagreement.
[593] COL-LAPSˊ-ED, fell together, as the sides of a hollow vessel; shrunk up; dwindled.
[594] PER-NIˊ-CIOUS, mischievous, hurtful, or evil, in a high degree.
[595] IN-DE-FATˊ-I-GA-BLE, incapable of being exhausted or wearied; persevering.
[596] _Pronounced_ Libˊnitz.
[597] IN-CESˊ-SANT, unceasing; continual.
[598] MU-NIFˊ-I-CENT, bountiful; liberal; generous.
[599] DES-CANTˊ-ING, discoursing; making remarks; commenting.
[600] CO-Eˊ-VAL, of the same age; contemporary.
LXXXIX.—THE DYING GIRL.
WILLIAMS.
1. From a Munster vale they brought her, From the pure and balmy air, An Ormond peasants daughter, With blue eyes and golden hair. They brought her to the city, And she faded slowly there; Consumption has no pity For blue eyes and golden hair.
2. When I saw her first reclining, Her lips were moved in prayer, And the setting sun was shining On her loosened golden hair. When our kindly glances met her, Deadly brilliant was her eye; And she said that she was better While we knew that she must die.
3. She speaks of Munster valleys, The patron,[601] dance, and fair. And her thin hand feebly dallies With her scattered golden hair. When silently we listened To her breath, with quiet care, Her eyes with wonder glistened, And she asked us what was there.
4. The poor thing smiled to ask it, And her pretty mouth laid bare, Like gems within a casket A string of pearlets rare. We said that we were trying By the gushing of her blood, And the time she took in sighing, To know if she were good.
5. Well, she smiled and chatted gayly, Though we saw, in mute despair, The hectic brighter daily, And the death-dew on her hair. And oft her wasted fingers, Beating time upon the bed, O’er some old tune she lingers, And she bows her golden head.
6. At length the harp is broken, And the spirit in its strings, As the last decree is spoken, To its source, exulting, springs. Descending swiftly from the skies, Her guardian angel came, He struck God’s lightning from her eyes, And bore Him back the flame.
7. Before the sun had risen Through the lark-loved morning air, Her young soul left its prison, Undefiled by sin or care. I stood beside the couch in tears, Where, pale and calm, she slept, And though I’ve gazed on death for years, I blush not that I wept. I checked with effort pity’s sighs, And left the matron there, To close the curtain of her eyes, And bind her golden hair.
[601] PA-TRONˊ, (pronounced pattern,) assemblage of persons on the anniversary of the local patron saint of a parish or town in Ireland.
XC.—THE ANGELUS BELL.
CAMPION.
1. The large moon of autumn, The guardian of night, Had closed her pale lamp In the firmaments height; From the Black Abbey’s towers The wild doves careered, As the bright dawn of morn Awaking appeared; And the old marble city, From campanile gray, Proclaimed to the burghers All Noreward—“’twas day!” Then the long, mellow knell Of the Angelus Bell, Seemed psalming and singing O’er blessed crypt and cell, Where the Black Monks were wont In the old times to dwell.
2. ’Twas noon, at the market-cross, In the quaint town, And the burgher so comely, The tall peasant brown, And the gaunt man-at-arms, And mild maiden meek, With the peach-blush of beauty And peace on her cheek, Were crowding together In hundreds around, While the tall cross stood stately ’Mid tumult and sound. Then the long, mellow knell Of the Angelus Bell Upon the dense crowd In the market-place fell; And the burgher knelt down, And the peasant as well, And the gaunt soldier rude, At the peal of the bell, While the pure maiden voice Joined the long, mellow knell.
3. ’Twas night o’er the abbey, The moon rose again O’er the grand domes of pleasure And poor haunts of pain; And the wild dove was nestled Again in the cleft Of the old belfry tower That early he left; And the pale monks were sitting Alone and alone, With lamps still unlighted, And penitent moan; When the Angelus Bell, With its long, mellow knell, Broke up their lone reveries Like a blest spell; And down on the cold earth The holy men fell, The grand prayer to chant And their long beads to tell; While sang with its psalm-voice The Angelus Bell.
XCI.—A CURTAIN LECTURE OF MRS. CAUDLE.
JERROLD.
Douglas William Jerrold was born in London in 1803, and died in 1857. He was first a midshipman in the navy, then a printer, and lastly, a man of letters by profession. His “Caudle Lectures” were published in the London Punch, and extensively read in England and America.
1. Bah! that’s the third umbrella gone since Christmas. What were you to do? Why, let him go home in the rain, to be sure. I’m very certain there was nothing about him that could spoil. Take cold, indeed! He doesn’t look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he’d have better taken cold than taken our umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear the rain? And, as I’m alive, if it isn’t St. Swithin’s day![602] Do you hear it against the window?
2. Nonsense: you don’t impose upon me; you can’t be asleep with such a shower as that! Do you hear it, I say? O, you _do_ hear it! Well, that’s a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks; and no stirring all the time out of the house. Pooh! don’t think me a fool, Mr. Caudle; don’t insult me! _he_ return the umbrella! Any body would think you were born yesterday. As if any body ever did return an umbrella!
3. There: do you hear it? Worse and worse. Cats and dogs, and for six weeks: always six weeks; and no umbrella! I should like to know how the children are to go to school to-morrow. They shan’t go through such weather, I am determined. No; they shall stop at home, and never learn any thing, the blessed creatures! sooner than go and get wet! And when they grow up, I wonder who they’ll have to thank for knowing nothing; who, indeed, but their father! People who can’t feel for their own children ought never to be fathers.
4. But I know why you lent the umbrella: O, yes, I know very well. I was going out to tea at dear mother’s to-morrow: you knew that, and you did it on purpose. Don’t tell me; you hate to have me go there, and take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don’t you think it, Mr. Caudle; no, sir: if it comes down in buckets’ full, I’ll go all the more.
5. No; and I won’t have a cab![603] Where do you think the money’s to come from? A cab indeed!—Cost me sixteen-pence, at least: sixteen-pence! two-and-eight-pence; for there’s back again. Cabs, indeed! I should like to know who’s to pay for ’em; for I’m sure you can’t, if you go on as you do, throwing away your property, and beggaring your children, buying umbrellas.
6. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear it? But I don’t care; I’ll go to mother’s to-morrow—I will; and what’s more, I’ll walk every step of the way; and you know that will give me my death. Don’t call me a foolish woman; it’s you that’s the foolish man. You know I can’t wear clogs[604]; and with no umbrella, the wet’s sure to give me a cold—it always does. But what do you care for that? Nothing at all. I may be laid up for all you care, as I dare say I shall; and a pretty doctor’s bill there’ll be. I hope there will. It will teach you to lend your umbrellas again. I shouldn’t wonder if I caught my death. Yes, and that’s what you lent the umbrella for. Of course.
7. Nice clothes I get, too, traipsing[605] through weather like this! My gown and bonnet will be spoiled quite. I needn’t wear ’em then. Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I _shall_ wear ’em. No, sir; I am not going out a dowdy to please you or any body else. Gracious knows! it isn’t often that I step over the threshold; indeed, I might as well be a slave at once: better, I should say; but when I do go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to go as a lady. O, that rain! if it isn’t enough to break in the windows.
8. Ugh! I look forward with dread to to-morrow! How I am to go to mother’s, I am sure I can’t tell, but if I die, I’ll do it.—No, sir, I won’t borrow an umbrella: no; and you shan’t _buy_ one. (_With great emphasis_.) Mr. Caudle, if you bring home another umbrella, I’ll throw it into the street.
9. Ha! and it was only last week I had a new nozzle put to that umbrella. I’m sure if I’d have known as much as I do now, it might have gone without one. Paying for new nozzles for other people to laugh at you! O, it’s all very well for you; you can go to sleep. You’ve no thought of your poor patient wife, and your own dear children: you think of nothing but lending umbrellas!
10. Men, indeed! Call themselves lords of creation! pretty lords, when they can’t even take care of an umbrella!
11. I know that walk to-morrow will be the death of me, but that’s what you want: then you may go to your club, and do as you like; and then nicely my poor dear children will be used; but then, sir, then you’ll be happy. O, don’t tell me! I know you will! else you’d never have lent the umbrella!
12. The children, dear things! they’ll be sopping wet; for they shan’t stay at home; they shan’t lose their learning; it’s ill their father will leave them, I’m sure.—But they _shall_ go to school. Don’t tell me they needn’t: you are so aggravating[606], Caudle, you’d spoil the temper of an angel; they _shall_ go to school! mark that: and if they get their deaths of cold, it’s not my fault; I didn’t lend the umbrella.
13. “Here,” says Caudle, in his manuscript, “I fell asleep, and dreamed that the sky was turned into green calico, with whalebone ribs: that, in fact, the whole world revolved under a tremendous umbrella!”
[602] There is an old superstition in England that if it rains on St. Swithin’s day (15th July), not one of the next forty days will be wholly without rain.
[603] CAB, a kind of carriage, with two or four wheels, drawn by one horse.
[604] CLOGS, a kind of overshoes worn to keep the feet dry.
[605] TRAIPSˊ-ING, a colloquial or low word, _meaning_, running about idly or carelessly.
[606] AGˊ-GRA-VAT-ING, making worse; _also colloquially_, provoking; irritating.
XCII.—THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.
HOOD.
Thomas Hood was born in London in 1798, and died in 1845. His life was one of severe toil and much suffering, always sustained, however, with manly resolution and a cheerful spirit. He wrote much, both in prose and verse. He was a man of peculiar and original genius, which manifested itself with equal power and ease in humor and pathos.
The following remarkable piece of poetry appeared in the London Punch only a short time before the death of the lamented author. It was written at a time when the attention of benevolent persons in London had been awakened to the inadequate wages paid to poor needlewomen, and their consequent distress; and from the seasonableness of its appearance, as well as its high literary merit, it produced a great effect. It is valuable, as an expression of that deep and impassioned sympathy with suffering, which was a leading trait in Hood’s nature, and forms an attractive element in his writings.
1. With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread— Stitch—stitch—stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still, with a voice of dolorous[607] pitch, She sang the “Song of the Shirt!”
2. Work—work—work! While the cock is crowing aloof![608] And work—work—work! Till the stars shine through the roof! It’s O, to be a slave Along with the barbarous Turk, Where woman has never a soul to save, If THIS is Christian work.
3. “Work—work—work! Till the brain begins to swim; Work—work—work! Till the eyes are heavy and dim! Seam, and gusset, and band, Band, and gusset, and seam, Till over the buttons I fall asleep, And sew them on in my dream.
4. “O men with sisters dear! O men with mothers and wives! It is not linen you’re wearing out, But human creatures’ lives! Stitch—stitch—stitch! In poverty, hunger and dirt, Sewing at once, with a double thread, A SHROUD as well as a shirt!
5. “But why do I talk of death, That phantom of grisly bone? I hardly fear his terrible shape, It seems so like my own— It seems so like my own, Because of the fast I keep: O God! that bread should be so dear, And flesh and blood so cheap!
6. “Work—work—work! My labor never flags; And what are its wages? A bed of straw, A crust of bread—and rags: A shattered roof—and this naked floor— A table—a broken chair— And a wall so blank my shadow I thank For sometimes falling there!
7. “Work—work—work! From weary chime to chime; Work—work—work! As prisoners work for crime! Band, and gusset, and seam, Seam, and gusset, and band, Till the heart is sick and the brain benumbed,[609] As well as the weary hand!
8. “Work—work—work! In the dull December light; And work—work—work! When the weather is warm and bright; While underneath the eaves The brooding swallows cling, As if to show me their sunny backs, And twit me with the spring.
9. “O, but to breathe the breath Of the cowslip and primrose sweet, With the sky above my head, And the grass beneath my feet! For only one short hour To feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want, And the walk that costs a meal!
10. “O, but for one short hour! A respite,[610] however brief! No blessed leisure for love or hope, But only time for grief! A little weeping would ease my heart— But in their briny bed My tears must stop, for every drop Hinders needle and thread!”
11. With fingers weary and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread— Stitch—stitch—stitch— In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch,— Would that its tone could reach the rich!— She sang this “Song of the Shirt!”
[607] DOLˊ-O-ROUS, sorrowful; painful.
[608] A-LOOFˊ, at a distance; apart.
[609] BE-NUMBEDˊ, made torpid.
[610] RESˊ-PITE, delay; pause; interval.
XCIII.—BERNARDO DEL CARPIO.
MRS. HEMANS.
The celebrated Spanish champion, Bernardo del Carpio, having made many ineffectual efforts to procure the release of his father, the Count Saldana, who had been imprisoned by King Alfonso of Asturias, at last took up arms in despair. The war which he maintained proved so destructive that the men of the land gathered round the king, and united in demanding Saldana’s liberty. Alfonso, accordingly, offered Bernardo immediate possession of his father’s person in exchange for his castle of Carpio. Bernardo, without hesitation, gave up his stronghold, with all his captives, and being assured that his father was then on his way from prison, rode forth with the king to meet him. “And when he saw his father approaching, he exclaimed,” says the ancient chronicle, “O God! is the Count of Saldana indeed coming?” “Look where he is,” replied the cruel king; “and now go and greet him whom you have so long desired to see.” The remainder of the story will be found related in the ballad. The chronicles and romances leave us nearly in the dark as to Bernardo’s history after this event.
1. The warrior bowed his crested head, and tamed his heart of fire. And sued the haughty king to free his long imprisoned sire: “I bring thee here my fortress keys, I bring my captive train; I pledge my faith, my liege:[611] my lord, O, break my father’s chain!”
2. “Rise, rise! even now thy father comes, a ransomed[612] man this day; Mount thy good horse, and thou and I will meet him on his way.” Then lightly rose that loyal son, and bounded on his steed, And urged, as if with lance in rest, the charger’s[613] foamy speed.
3. And, lo! from far, as on they pressed, there came a glittering band, With one that ’midst them stately rode, as a leader in the land. “Now haste, Bernardo, haste! for there, in very truth, is he, The father, whom thy faithful heart hath yearned[614] so long to see.”
4. His dark eye flashed, his proud breast heaved, his cheeks’ hue came and went; He reached that gray-haired chieftain’s side, and, there dismounting, bent; A lowly knee to earth he bent, his father’s hand he took— What was there in its touch that all his fiery spirit shook?
5. That hand was cold! a frozen thing!—it dropped from his like lead: He looked up to the face above—the face was of the dead! A plume waved o’er the noble brow—the brow was fixed and white! He met, at length, his father’s eyes—but in them was no sight!