happy life inherent in art are mingled other joys; — gladness in the infinite gradations and boundless variations of curve, color, and shading; gladness that sympathizes with the workman's pleasant work and success; gladness that throbs in unison with the life of nature suggested in decoration, the delight of fellow-feeling with God's rejoicing creatures; the happiness also of living over the past as recorded in man's work, and being thrilled with the struggles, hopes, and pleasures of ages gone by; the happiness, above all, of co-working with the Spirit who, as the all-indwelling life, garnished the heavens and the earth, and conspiring with and emulating the Lord of the old and the new creation; the happiness, finally, of that reconciled conscience and purified heart without which we are insensible to the beauty of beauty, without which the loveliest forms are discords and accusing witnesses, and the gold of heaven would be dim.

But as all things have their sweetest beginning and ending in love, so has this subject. The life that breathes in works of beauty, like all vitality, is love; for life, according to the definition above given, is a mutual exchange, a giving and taking, and that is love. "And all that life is love," sings the hymn, more profound than its intention. The lowest lifethe chemical-works by affinities; much more each higher. All this aside, however, it is the beautiful that is chosen for the gifts of friendship; and there is in all beautiful production an affection that learns all its wisdom and skill through loving regard to nature, that toils for the sake of some who are dear, that beautifies only when it fondly lingers and plays over its work like sunshine on the mountains, and that does all, or should do all, as an adoring service and sacrifice to the God of beauty, the infinite love. A gospel of love, no less than of life, may be found in all that is ornamental in human effort, while in the delicate beauty of nature there is superadded the truth of Divine grace, the more signal because mingled with judgment. In every dainty flower the gentleness of God would arrest the feet of indifference and recklessness, in every wavy outline of a landscape his tenderness writes itself, in every touch of light and every bright color his mercy smiles, and in every harmless and graceful creature he plays with his children of filial heart.

ART. III.1. History of Western Massachusetts; the Counties of Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire; embracing an Outline, or General History, of the Section, an Account of its Scientific Aspects and Leading Interests, and Separate Histories of its One Hundred Towns. Springfield Samuel Bowles & Co. 1855.

2. The Bay-Path: a Tale of New England Colonial Life. New York: George P. Putnam & Co. 1857.

3. Timothy Titcomb's Letters to Young People: Single and Married. New York: Charles Scribner. 1858.

4. Bitter-Sweet: a Poem. New York: Charles Scribner. 1859.

5. Gold-Foil, hammered from Popular Proverbs. New York: Charles Scribner. 1859.

6. Miss Gilbert's Career: an American Story. New York: Charles Scribner. 1860.

7. Lessons in Life: a Series of Familiar Essays. New York Charles Scribner. 1861.

THE propensity to be a reformer was not more native to the American character of a few generations ago, than to the character of other nations in the world; it has secured its present hold by indulgence and encouragement, and by having at last found its way into that tide of hereditary transmission which holds in solution, and from time to time precipitates, such specialities as the Bourbon and Hapsburg shapes of face, and the Douglas truth and tenderness. The Spaniards, wise and thoughtful, as most lazy fellows are, distinguish, quietly and gravely, (with cigar between the lips,) being as a continuous, dignified state, from being as some active, determinate condition; and to this they give the verb estar, to that ser. Now the momentary disposition to change, as something we think better catches the eye, becomes, when lengthened out into habit, the idiosyncrasy of the reformer; and this is the character of a large number of our free-speaking and fastthinking people. The most active of these let the beard grow, brush back the hair from the forehead, and have Missions; and the rest of the reforming part of this race, also brushing

back the hair and letting the beard grow, believe in Progress, and follow their leaders so long as their leaders go.

Opinion is puffed into one's face, in the street, from both sides, oftener than whiffs of tobacco-smoke. "I guess" are the try-words of the American baby, making his way into the machinery of the self-rocking cradle; and the beneficent Central-American halter chokes close behind the inaugural "I reckon," in the throat of the Yankee* Filibuster, who has been plunging for once too far into the midst of foreign institutions. To have an opinion, and after having it to utter it, is as necessary to Americans as to have and use an inquisitive weapon, such as a penknife, or iron nail, or at least a pin. It could hardly be otherwise, since every man votes, and since every lawgiver (and, unhappily, in a large part of the country, every law-handler) and every great question, political, industrial, financial, and educational, is set straight up before everybody's vote, to stand or fall by the majority of ballots. The young, and the still younger men, down to those who are just learning to thrust their determined feet through the legs of trousers, are not, to be sure, voters, but they are growing up to be voters, and they practise incessantly in the utterance of opinions, as the Lacedæmonian boys used to practise with bows and arrows.

The general feeling has been (at least while our land was whole) that this country is to show the way and to teach reform, wherever, in governing or achieving, reform is needed, or a way is to be shown. Some one, and an American, is to find out and proclaim; and therefore all must be up and doing. Americans must always be hitting somewhere, and hacking at something. Incessant use of sharp tools has made the youth of this country daring and skilful; but it has made them also the most annoying race to slip in front of, or to sleep in front of, or to do anything of one's own in front of, that can be found by travellers on sea or land, except - (the exceptions, too, are to be found in our own country, but we will not just now find them).

* This is written in our old way of regarding Southerners as members of the great nation known to the world abroad as Yankees.

Happily, for a people of such born and taught reformers, it is a matter of necessity that they should bear with one another, after some sort, and make mutual room for the escaping idea; and so they do, sometimes very wonderfully. The old horny-handed cooper, for example, whose fingers, when little, were first pricked in his father's work-shop with splinters of puncheon-staves that, a long half-century ago, walled in a sea of madness and Lethe, lends his ear, indulgently, among the newly-landed hogsheads, to the urchin-vagabond who is stealing the molasses with a straw; the statesman, if there yet linger one in public life where he finds little occasion and less welcome, or, in fault of a statesman, the eminent politician,- stands, meekly to recite to one or many conceited know-nothings from among his constituents; and the well-taught and deep-thinking divine turns a placid, pale cheek to any long-winded layman who feels able and willing to tell him the true meaning of Holy Scripture, and who does tell it to him, so far as there is time to go, with the same readiness with which he affirms, from behind his counter, the quality and first cost of his goods.

In short, Americans in general tolerate, and the most thoughtful and best-taught helplessly submit to, the self-assertion of their countrymen against all and singular. From such a people, to be sure, the ingenuous blush of old-time modesty has necessarily gone as thoroughly and hopelessly as the fair sky-hues from the lift of London or of Pittsburg, and reverence has dwindled to some such vestigial portion in the American man as the eyes of underground fishes; but, on the other hand, a mutual tolerance and indulgence which are truly wonderful qualify, in a hopeful way, the mischief that would, without them, far more largely come of the untying and unmuzzling of the individual in this country. Two members of a herd, pushing each other by the head and front, will sometimes each give way in turn; will now and then both unlock their opposing horns and withdraw a little; will by and by again set their broad brows together, and in this way will long strive with each other, and take turns in yielding, for mere sport; although, when they are more in earnest, the one bears the other by main strength backward, until the

weaker gives up the struggle. If more evenly matched, each will gain or lose, according as one or the other, while they move about the field, gets the advantage of the ground, or puts forth more sudden might. Much in the same way do our guessers and calculators in holding and giving out their opinions. They are not always in earnest at first; they are not always in earnest at all; although if they are so, then the stronger must overcome, even if it seem that, in the end, the earth is to be smothered in ashes or drowned in blood. Meantime, an opinion, in this country, until it is opposed, goes, with all whose prejudices or whose interest may not be touched by it, for the received opinion; nor does it lose its credit till it is overborne by strength. For one reason or other, either indifference or a feeling that the sacredness of opinion is to be kept up for the sake of everybody's chance with it, (generally owing to a mixture of the two,)-every American feels bound to indulge every other American in the utterance of opinion.

The seeming encouragement, however, is no encouragement, nor even a kindly indulgence, for the most part; it is simply a toleration. Whenever there has been motive enough for the making of a party, a party has been made, either of the great American people against the world, or else of one set of the people against another set; and whenever parties have been formed, then individuals are no more encouraged to assert themselves, than some one hair of the head has leave to assert itself against the general consent of the rest, or a bit of the standing or running rigging of a ship to have its own separate will. There are only a few men in a great many who are forth-right strikers, and only a few that have good strong lungs, and know how to shout; so are there only a few leaders, at any time, and the great many are followers; and all the utterances of opinion that we hear from so many tongues, each speaking for itself, are but the breathing over again of stale breath. The great number of votes carries anything that any man cares about, and therefore whichever party is the stronger conquers, and whoever belongs to the stronger party conquers with it.

Opinion, moreover, that is, the expression of one mind