Chapter 2

We think that no one who attentively reads the foregoing extracts can fail to see the infinite superiority of the latter over the former, in every thing that pertains to a faithful representation of nature. Irving has given us the scene just as he saw it, unmixed with any hue or coloring with which the mood of his own mind might have invested it. We see the objects themselves, disconnected from the associations of the spectator. Had there been a thousand persons looking on, each would have heard the same sounds, and seen the same sights. There is nothing that is extraneous. He has given us an exact copy of his original, and nothing more. Thomson, on the contrary, has not described a thunderstorm as he saw it, but according to the effect that it produced on his own mind. His epithets are rarely descriptive of the qualities that exist in the objects to which they are applied. They have reference rather to the emotions which their presence produces in himself. Thus, in the first line, 'boding' is not a quality that can be predicated of silence. To the feeling that the silence preceding a storm is wont to excite, the epithet is properly enough applied. So with the expression 'dubious dusk.'

In connection with these extracts, we will look at one taken from SCOTT'S description of the scenery around Loch Katrine:

'Boon nature scattered free and wild, Each plant, or flower, the mountain's child; Here eglantine embalmed the air, Hawthorn and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale, and violet flower, Found in each cleft a narrow bower; Foxglove and night-shade, side by side Emblems of punishment and pride, Grouped their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain; With boughs that quaked at every breath, Gray-birch and aspen wept beneath; Aloft the ash and warrior oak Cast anchor in the rifted rock; And higher yet the pine tree hung His scattered trunk, and frequent flung Where seemed the cliffs to meet on high His boughs athwart the narrowed sky. Highest of all, where white peaks glanced, Where glistening streamers waved and danced, The wanderer's eye could barely view The summer heaven's delicious blue.'

The same remarks which we applied to Irving are applicable with some little restriction here. With one or two exceptions, the epithets mark attributes that exist in the subjects. Every one can see at a glance the appropriateness of such terms as _pale_ primrose, _gray_ birch, and _narrow_ bower. They are not dependent for their effect upon any fanciful train of associations which their names may excite.

If we compare the above extracts together, we arrive at certain results which we shall briefly state. We will throw out of view for a moment any pleasure which the rhythm may give us, as foreign to our present purpose. Each of these writers is describing a scene from nature. Each of them has the same object, to interest others by a representation of those sights and sounds that interested themselves. Scott accomplishes his purpose by presenting as exact a picture of nature as it is possible perhaps for words to give. He does not tell us how he is affected by what he sees, and looks upon neither directly nor indirectly. He does not search for any resemblances that are not palpable, and founded in the nature of things. All similes and metaphors which serve to express his own emotions are carefully avoided. The whole is picturesque and life-like in the highest degree, yet every circumstance is mentioned in the cool, unimpassioned way in which we mention any common occurrence.

Thomson accomplishes his purpose by portraying his own feelings; not indeed in so many words, but by the use of those expressions, and by those transitions of thought, which mark a state of emotion. The epithet 'boding,' to which we have referred, is an example. It is an indirect disclosure of the mood of his own mind. At another time it is not improbable that an epithet of a directly opposite meaning would have been selected. The reader is affected by it, because by a law of sympathy, we are affected by whatever reveals the presence of passion in another. It influences us precisely as the tones of the voice of a person in distress influence us. Both are expressive of emotion, and we cannot remain unaffected by them.

This is the main source of the pleasure we feel in reading Thomson's description. It conveys to us but a very indistinct idea of the subject matter. Different readers, according to their mental peculiarities, will be differently affected by it. He does not paint to the bodily eye, but to the eye of the mind; and he will feel most pleasure who puts himself in the same position as the poet, and sees with his eyes and hears with his ears. Unless he can do this, he will derive but little gratification from the perusal.

Less minute than Irving, and more picturesque than Thomson, Scott will probably to most readers give more pleasure than either of them. In conveying lively impressions of natural objects he is unsurpassed, but he is scarcely less successful in inspiring the mind of the reader with the same emotions that fill his own breast. There is ever between the thought and its expression a perfect harmony. It is only when agitated by passion that he uses the _language_ of passion. Hence we never find that timid phraseology which so often disgusts us in Thomson; _vox et præterea nihil_. No one delights more in the use of figurative language, nor employs metaphors that more appropriately convey the sentiment that pervades his mind. In the passage we have quoted are the following lines:

'Aloft the ash and warrior oak Cast anchor in the rifted rock.'

The poet looking up at the trees firmly rooted in the rifts of the rock, defying the tempest and storm, felt an emotion of pleasure which the sight of their lofty position, and the apparent danger of their being hurled headlong at the first blast of wind, contrasted with the sense of their real security, produced. To express this pleasurable emotion, he fastens upon the resemblance between a root of the tree and an anchor; a resemblance not between the things themselves, but between their uses. Neglecting all the points of difference, and confining his attention to this single point of similarity, he presents an image which all admit to be highly forcible and poetical.

The great merit of all descriptive poetry consists in the unity of feeling which pervades it. Unlike the epic, or the drama, it has none of the interest which arises from a connected narrative, or the development of individual character in reference to a certain end. The poet confines himself to the expression of those feelings which are awakened by the sight of the beauty and sublimity of nature. Passing, as he necessarily must, from one object to another, each fitted to excite in his bosom conflicting emotions, his attention is so much diverted, that none of them produces upon him its legitimate effect. There is wanting some central object of interest to which all others are subordinate. Hence is explained the listlessness of which every one is conscious in the continuous perusal of the Seasons. We find the greatest pleasure by reading a page here and a page there, according to the state of our feelings.

It is never in short poems that the descriptive poets succeed best. L'Allegro and Le Penseroso are gems; but all Milton's genius could not have made the Paradise Lost readable, were it deprived of its unity as an epic, and broken up into a series of detached pictures. The Deserted Village of Goldsmith is the longest poem of this class that we now remember, having all its parts so pervaded by a common spirit that a succession of new objects does not impair the designed effect. Sweet Auburn as it was in its palmy days, and as it is in its desolation, presents two distinct pictures, yet so closely connected that each heightens the effect of the other by the contrast. Nothing can exceed the exquisite art with which Goldsmith has seized upon those circumstances that tend to make the desired impression, and rejected all others. How perfect are each of the following descriptions, and how much would their beauty be marred by the transfer of a single circumstance from one to the other:

'How often have I paused on every charm, The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm; The never-failing brook, the busy mill, The decent church that topped the neighb'ring hill; The hawthorn-bush with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whispering lovers made.

* * * * *

'The dancing pair that simply sought renown, By holding out to tire each other down; The swain mistrustless of his smutted face, While secret laughter tittered round the place; The bashful virgin's sidelong looks of love, The matron's glance, that would those looks reprove.

* * * * *

'No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, But choked with sedges works its weedy way; Along thy glade, a solitary guest, The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, And tires the echoes with unvaried cries; Sunk are thy bowers, in shapeless ruin all, And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall.'

It is by the selection of such objects as have in themselves no common bond of union, but which combine to raise a certain emotion, that the essential distinction is to be found between the descriptions of the poet and the prose-writer. The latter joins objects together as they are joined in nature, following a principle of association which is simple and obvious. His resemblances are usually such as are cognizable by the senses; a likeness in the sensible qualities of things. The poet's principle of association is in the effect produced on his imagination. Things which have not in themselves a single point of similarity, are connected together, because they produce the same emotions of pleasure, or pain, or hope, or melancholy. A beautiful illustration of this is found in the opening stanzas of Gray's Elegy:

'The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.'

A summer evening in the country is associated in most minds with images of mirth and joy. Thus Goldsmith has described it:

'Sweet was the sound, when oft at evening's close, Up yonder hill the village murmur rose; There as I passed with careless steps, and slow, The mingling notes came softened from below; The swain responsive as the milk-maid sung, The sober herd that lowed to meet their young; The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool, The playful children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice, that bayed the whisp'ring wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind.'

With what consummate skill, if indeed it be not rather the instinct of the poet, has Gray avoided all mention of those objects which might awaken associations discordant with the mood of his own mind! Each epithet is full of a plaintive melancholy. There is not one that does not contribute something to the effect; not one that can be omitted; not one that can be altered for the better. Yet there is scarcely one that is descriptive of any quality actually existing in its subject. The fitness of each is to be felt rather than seen.

In the selection of those circumstances and objects which Gray has enumerated, he was governed by the effect which each had upon his own feelings. He looked upon nature in the reflected light of his own heart. He was mournful in view of the destiny of man; and wandering amidst the graves of the lowly and obscure, he saw all the external world colored with the hue of his own sad thoughts. The melancholy spirit within him transformed all things without into its own likeness. His imagination, darting hither and thither, and governed in its flight by laws too subtle and delicate to be analyzed, reposed itself for a moment amidst the gloom of the historical associations that cluster around the curfew, hovered over the lowing herd, and followed the ploughman as he homeward plods his weary way. Goldsmith, recalling the scenes where he had spent many happy hours, looks upon nature under a far different aspect. Every thing to him is gay and joyous. He hears not the hollow tones of the curfew, nor the drowsy tinklings that lull the distant folds. He sees not the wearied ploughman, caring for nought but to forget his toils in the sweet oblivion of sleep. He hears but the song of the milk-maid, and the soft response of her rustic lover; the watchdog's voice, and the loud laugh of the happy idlers. He sees but the children just escaped from school, running and leaping, and romping in their innocent glee. Happy himself, he fastens upon whatever in nature around him seems to sympathise with him, and dwelling fondly upon it, casts away from his thoughts every thing that can obstruct the full, free flow of his joyous emotions.

We may remark in passing, what has probably been before remarked by the attentive reader, that both Gray and Goldsmith, excited as they are by different passions, refer to the 'lowing herd' as raising on the one hand a cheerful, and on the other a melancholy feeling. To our thought, the associations connected with the return of the herds from the fields at sunset are best fitted to awaken that quiet, reflective state of mind which is most congenial to the mood of the elegiac poet. To another, these associations may be of such a character as to produce a directly opposite effect.

The writer of prose who should describe scenes like these, would aim to give us a distinct and accurate picture by presenting all their prominent features, omitting nothing, and grouping them as Nature herself had grouped them. Such descriptions we daily see in all books of voyages and travels. Or if the descriptions be of scenes wholly imaginary, their essential character is not changed. Although they cease to be real, they do not become poetical. The extract which we have made from Irving is not poetical. Accurate, vivid, life-like, it is. We cannot read it without a feeling of pleasure. We admire the genius of the writer; we wonder at the magnificence of the spectacle which, by a few masterly touches, he has raised up before us. But there is no more poetry in it than in his description of Herr Van Tassel's supper table, covered with all the luxuries of Dutch housewifery. It is true, there may be more of beauty and sublimity in the scenery of the Hudson, in the gathering clouds and muttering thunder, than in the sight of dough-nuts and crullers, sweet-cakes and short-cakes, peach pies and pumpkin pies, slices of ham and slices of smoked beef; yet the spirit of poetry exists no more in the one than in the other. Poetry has its abode in the _heart_ of man; not in the winds, in the clouds, in the mountains, or in the vales. It does not derive its power from the outward world, but breathes into it its own breath of life, investing the earth with a beauty which has no existence but in the human soul, and filling the air with sweet harmonies, which are unheard save by the inspired ear of the poet.

We have now, we think, sufficiently answered the question, why so many who read descriptive poetry with pleasure, look with indifference upon what is beautiful or sublime in nature. The poet is to them like one who gives sight to the blind. The landscape which formerly lay before their eyes unregarded, almost unseen, is now 'beautiful exceedingly.' Nature has not changed; they themselves have not changed; yet there _is_ a change. There is a glory unseen before, cast over the earth. It is, as it were, transfigured before them, and made radiant with celestial light. This is the poet's work. With a keener perception of the beautiful and sublime than other men; with a greater facility of association, and with the power to give to language the hue and intensity of his own feelings, he clothes lifeless nature with the attributes of humanity, making it instinct with human sentiment and passion. Like Burns, he pours forth his lament over the mountain-daisy cut down in its bloom, in a few simple words that find a response in the hearts of all men; and henceforth it is embalmed in our memories, and shall be as immortal as the star that shines in the far depths of the heavens. Like Wordsworth, he wanders upon the banks of his native lakes, and mingles his song with the noise of their waters, until the faintest whisper of the rippling waves seems but the echo of his voice. Wherever he goes fruits, flowers, and herbage spring up in his footsteps. A divine Presence goes with him; Nature speaks to him with her thousand voices, and he hears, and answers, making sweet music in the joy of his heart. Nothing is so inconsiderable as to be without the pale of his sympathy; nothing too humble to stir the fountains of love in his breast. The solitary flower that blossoms by the way-side, the rivulet far away amid the hills, is but the starting point of that wondrous chain of thick-coming fancies, that fill his eyes with light, and his ear with harmony; as if multitudes of angels were hovering around, and he heard on every side the rustling of their wings.

Such are the gifts of the poet. They are God's gifts, and are indeed 'wonderful in our eyes.'

VICISSITUDES.

Hast thou not been where wild winds, freshly blowing, Brought odorous gladness on each passing gale; Hast thou not been where the pure streamlet flowing, In each soft murmur told a gentle tale:

As the bright flashing of its gushing water, Glad as the tones of merriment and glee That joyous burst from children in their laughter, Swift dashes onward to the boundless sea?

Hast thou not been where the enamelled mead Its beauty gave to the enraptured sense, And the crushed lily, from the elastic tread, Yielded its life in breath of sweets intense?

Hast thou not been in spring-time's early hours, Where the lone bird its short sweet carol gave To the young bursting leaves and budding flowers, Beside some wildly-rushing mountain wave?

Not such the lay it sings in summer hours, When love beats high within its little breast, And its exulting song it joyous pours, Where thick embowering leaves conceal its nest.

Hast thou not marked, when autumn's gorgeous glory Fled in the rushing of the hurrying blast, The deep'ning pathos of the moral story Sighed in each cadence, as it onward passed.

Hast thou not heard the ancient forests, bending To the far sweeping of the mighty wind, Send forth a solemn sound, as though responding To voices deep that secret powers unbind?

Hast thou not stood where ocean madly raging, Rolled onward as with overmastering shock: 'Till hushed the storm, the chaféd surge assuaging, It gently laved the firm-opposing rock?

Hast thou not gleaned a lesson to thy reason From winter's fostering power and spring's awakening reign; Summer's brief heat, autumn's maturing season, And learned vicissitudes are not in vain?

But from the varied page outspread before thee, Garner'd of wisdom for thy fleeting days, Whether the sunshine or the storm be o'er thee, Forward to look with hope, and trust, and praise?

_Newport, Rhode-Island, Dec., 1843._ E. R. G. H.

THE IDLEBERG PAPERS.

A CHRISTMAS YARN.

At Christmas every body is or should be happy. The genial influence of the season lightens alike the lofty hall and the lowly cottage. It is the same at home or abroad, on the land or the billow, in royal purple or in ragged poverty; here and every where, to one and to all, it is always 'merrie Christmas.' At such a time there is an obligation due from every man to society, to be happy, and the more cheerfully it is paid, the better. The man who would be found scowling and glowering like a thunder-cloud, cherishing his private griefs or animosities at a time when every other countenance is glowing with light, and hope, and sunshine, should be denied all the charities of humanity, and exiled to Kamschatka, or some other inhospitable clime, to growl and fret with the wild beasts, or the wilder elements.

How dear is the light of home when glowing with the fires of Christmas! What though the elements be wild without, or Jack Frost blow his whistling pipe at the door, or fierce winds rumble down the chimney, and tell of sweeping gusts and howling storms abroad, if within and around that charmed circle is breathed the spirit of kindness and affection! Should the titled stranger or the ragged beggar knock, throw wide open the doors of thy hospitality; and while prattling infants recount the joys of the season, and school-boy striplings pursue their holiday sports, and gray-haired men who have traversed the wide world over, tell how in all their wanderings they have never passed a Christmas from home; he will turn his thoughts with a melancholy pleasure to the distant fireside beyond the sea, and to the friends who are gathered there, and wonder where the wanderer is spending his Christmas.

With all respect for the ancient and honorable class of 'old bachelors,' whose sympathy and good fellowship we most earnestly desire, be it said, that if to any it is allowed to be miserable at Christmas, it surely is to them. We would not for the world say aught to heighten the sad picture of their social desolation, by dwelling on the thousand tender endearments of home, the ten thousand cords of love, of which they know nothing. Certain it is, that to many of them 'merrie Christmas' brings only pangs of remorse; and we have known more than one crusty member of the fraternity, who on such occasions would rush incontinently from the scene and the sound of merriment, and shut themselves under lock and key, until the storm was passed, and people have recovered their lost senses.

Such an one, however, we are proud to say, was _not_ TOM HARDESTY, though bachelor he was, in the superlative degree. Every body wondered how he managed to preserve his good-humor and vivacity under the frosts of three-score winters. At the period of this authentic history, Tom was the village grocer; a station he had filled to his own profit and the town's convenience until he had become a piece of village furniture, necessary to its existence as a corporation. His little store, with its great variety of commodities, adapted to every human want, was in itself a perfect 'curiosity-shop.' Odd-looking boxes, kegs, chests, casks, barrels and hogsheads, contained his groceries, drugs and dye-stuffs. A few remnants of domestic prints and muslins, together with stray fragments of broadcloth, constituted his stock of dry-goods. Then there was a modicum of hardware and cutlery; a few spelling-books and new testaments for a book store; and sundry jars and bottles filled with fancy-colored powders and liquids, for an apothecary shop. His remaining list of commodities was made up of hats, caps and bonnets, boots and shoes, tin-pans and looking-glasses, slate-pencils and sifters; and as his standing advertisement in the village newspaper duly notified the public, 'other articles too numerous to mention--call and see for yourselves.' If any body desired an article nobody ever heard of before, he could find a large lot thereof at Tom Hardesty's; and if any lucky or ingenious wight had found or made any thing that nobody else would have as a gracious gift, let him call on Mr. Hardesty, and it was the very thing he wanted. In a word, his shop was a grand dépôt for every article the ingenuity of man could devise, or his necessities require.