Page images
PDF
EPUB

sloping terraces which adorn the garden, while he pointed out and named to me the persons worthy of being distinguished from the crowd. After a long array of titled personages and literati had been presented to my notice, 'Who,' I asked, 'are the unpretending persons just advancing towards us-I mean, that venerable old man, and the fading yet intellectual-looking woman that leans, as if for support, upon his arm?'

"That is Professor L-, of Berlin, the most celebrated of the few Orthodox theologians that Germany can boast; and the lady is his only daughter. She is, as you see, past the first bloom of womanhood; but she is a rare specimen of intellectual culture, and I doubt if our land can produce another Frederika. Incessant study has worn down her physical strength; but her mental powers are undiminished, and her love of everything that is true, pure, and good, adds a bright, untarnished lustre to her name.'

shot

"An undefinable sensation through my frame-a thrill, that made my heartstrings vibrate. My thoughts reverted to the unknown who, but a few months before, had given a deeper interest to my life than it had ever known. And where was she now Had her fate *been sealed by death's stern warrant, or did she still live to hope and pray for me? I gazed after the receding form of Frederika; and as a wild, improbable idea forced itself upon me, I left my friend, and sought the solitude of my chamber.

"I saw her no more that day; but the following one, at sunset, we met at the upper spring. My friend was also there, and introduced us to each other. To my great disappointment, not a shade passed over her countenance as she heard my name, but, entering into conversation with the most graceful ease and self-possession, she soon charmed me by the originality and depth of her mind, and by the unaffected simplicity of her manner. Her father I found a no less agreeable acquaintance; and when at length he delicately alluded to my success as an author, I saw the eyes of Frederika turned upon me, as I answered, Yet I would gladly blot out, if I could, all that I have written.'

"I have admired your genius,' replied the old man, but I admit that I have regretted its being exercised upon the ephemeral philosophy so much in vogue—a philosophy the more dangerous, because it surrounds itself with all the allurements of mental imagery, and casts a veil of dreamy beauty around its most glaring inconsistencies.'

"The harmony of the moral world,' I replied, as well as the order of the physical universe, has dispelled in a great degree the clouds that obscured my mental vision; and I see at last the scheme of eternal intelligence developing itself alike in both. The wonderful adaptation of means to ends has convinced me that there is a great First Cause separate from myself-infinite in power-the maker and upholder of all things.'

"A tear glistened in the eyes of the old man, as he turned his face towards his daughter; and our conversation was abruptly terminated by his being called away.

"Frederika and myself were left alone. My heart throbbed with unwonted rapidity; the state of suspense was misery.

666

Tell me,' I began-and, abashed at my presumption, I hesitated. She looked at me for a moment in silence; then, gently placing her hand in mine, she said:

"Ernest Steiner, we have met at

[blocks in formation]

"Two months-two eventful months passed away; and the hue of health again visited the cheek of Frederika. In my intercourse with herself and her admirable parent, I had felt my nature purified and improved; while my views were in a great measure enlightened and confirmed by the simple, but allpowerful arguments of the Christian divine. I had, found in the real friend of my soul, the ideal bride of my affections; but the word upon which my all of happiness must be staked, had not been spoken. I had, when a child, blown bubbles in the summer air, and as the floating orb was sus

"To belong to the Orthodox party in Germany at the present time, the great points of Lutheran belief must be admitted."-Dwight's Travels in Germany.

pended between earth and Heaven, and I marked its opal shades, and saw the bright images reflected on its surface, I scarcely dared to breathe, for fear I should dissolve the existence of that fairy globe. Thus did I feel, as the hour drew on that must either unite, or separate us for ever. It was no common die to cast; it must be blighted manhood-or-a prospect of happiness that I could not trust myself to dwell upon.

"It was on the evening prior to her departure from Baden, that I told her of my deep, my fervent attachment. I told her what she had been to me in that dark and stormy period of my life, when I turned away in bitterness from every sound of consolation; I told her of the yearning desire of my heart to be a wiser and a better man. With all the pleading tenderness of love, I besought her to share life's weal or woe with me; and as the light of her placid smile beamed in beauty and hope upon my soul, I felt that earth had no choicer gift to bestow, and that the best blessing I had ever coveted was now indeed mine.

“Dost thou remember thy mother, my boy? Aye, by those tears, I see that thou hast not forgotten her. Comes she in the still night-watches to bless thy slumber? Wieland, when the passion-pulses of thy young bosom are throbbing wildly, and temptation with its winning blandishments would lead

thy steps astray, then let the counsels she has given thee, lure thee back into the paths of purity and peace."

The young man clasped his father's hand between his own, and both remained silent. There were thoughts too deep for their utterance, or for my expression, that were busy at their hearts; and as night in its starry beauty closed around them, the shrouded memories of other days came floating on, and robed the past in golden colors such as it was wont to wear.

The elder Steiner continued to gaze in dreamy reverie upon the towering spire, and as he remembered how often she had looked out upon that sky with him, and had spoken of its eternal mysteries, a faint smile illumined his countenance, and he breathed this passionate appeal to the recollection of buried joys:

"Beautiful Ideal! oh, come to me again, freighted with the precious love, which as my wife she bore me. Come to me, with all the hallowed influences, which, for years, she shed around my soul. Come to me, not with the shadows of the early grave, but with the soft rainbow hues of my wedded home. Refined and exalted by the touch of truth, oh, whisper to my heart of the happiness that is hers! Tell me, in my hours of despondence, that she lives where the Ideal fades, and is merged in the mighty Real!"

NOTE.-At the present time, accounts of experiments in Animal Magnetism are apt to excite the smile of incredulity; and one of the incidents of the above story will, perhaps, find but few believers. It is paralleled, however, to some extent by a circumstance within the knowledge of the writer, which occurred in this country a few years since. An eminent physician of New York, who was far from being a believer in Mesmerism, was attending a female patient laboring under distressing nervous debility. During the heavy sleep that succeeded one of her most severe attacks, he thought that he would test

the effect of Animal Magnetism upon her; if, indeed, he should be able to succeed in his effort. He willed that she should visit heaven; and as he watched her countenance, he could observe the expression of suffering giving place to one of tranquil enjoyment. When she awoke, she told him that she had dreamed of Paradise; and described in the most circumstantial and glowing manner, what she had felt and seen. The physician, from that time, ceased to consider the experiments mentioned by others as unworthy of belief.

J. L. S.

REMARKS ON AMERICAN ART.

BY HORATIO GREENOUGH.

THE susceptibility, the tastes, and the genius which enable a people to enjoy the Fine Arts, and to excel in them, have been denied to the Anglo-Americans, not only by European talkers, but by European thinkers. The assertion of our obtuseness and inefficiency in this respect, has been ignorantly and presumptuously set forth by some persons, merely to fill up the measure of our condemnation. Others have arrived at the same conclusion, after examining our political and social character, after investigating our exploits and testing our capacities. They admit that we trade with enterprise and skill, that we build ships cunningly and sail them well, that we have a quick and far-sighted apprehension of the value of a territory, that we make wholesome homespun laws for its government, and that we fight hard when molested in any of these homely exercises of our ability; but they assert that there is a stubborn, anti-poetical tendency in all that we do, or say, or think; they attribute our very excellence in the ordinary business of life, to causes which must prevent our development as artists.

Enjoying the accumulated result of the thought and labor of centuries, Europe has witnessed our struggles with the hardships of an untamed continent, and the disadvantages of colonial relations, with but a partial appreciation of what we aim at, with but an imperfect knowledge of what we have done. Seeing us intently occupied during several generations in felling forests, in building towns, and constructing roads, she thence formed a theory that we are good for nothing except these pioneer efforts. She taunted us, because there were no statues or frescoes in our log-cabins; she pronounced us unmusical, because we did not sit down in the swamp with an Indian on one side, and a rattlesnake on the other, to play the violin. That she should triumph over the deficiencies of a people who had set the

example of revolt and republicanism, was natural; but the reason which she assigned for those deficiencies was not the true reason. She argued with the depth and the sagacity of a philosopher who should conclude, from seeing an infant imbibe with eagerness its first aliment, that its whole life would be occupied in similar absorption.

Sir Walter Scott, rank tory as he was, showed more good sense, when, in recommending an American book to Miss Edgeworth, he accounted for such a phenomenon, by saying, "that people once possessed of a three-legged stool, soon contrive to make an easychair." Humble as the phrase is, we here perceive an expectation on his part, that the energies now exercised in laying the foundations of a mighty empire, would in due time rear the stately columns of civilisation, and crown the edifice with the entablature of letters and of arts. Remembering that one leg of the American stool was planted in Maine, a second in Florida, and the third at the base of the Rocky Mountains, he could scarce expect that the chair could become an easy one in a half-century.

It is true, that before the Declaration of Independence, Copley had in Boston formed a style of portrait which filled Sir Joshua Reynolds with astonishment; and that West, breaking through the bar of Quaker prohibition, and conquering the prejudice against a provincial aspirant, had taken a high rank in the highest walk of art in London. Stuart, Trumbull, Alston, Morse, Leslie, Newton, followed in quick succession, while Vanderlyn won golden opinions at Rome, and bore away high honors at Paris. So far were the citizens of the Republic from showing a want of capacity for art, that we may safely affirm, that the bent of their genius was rather peculiarly in that direction, since the first burins of Europe were employed in the service of the American pencil, before Irving had written, and while

Cooper was yet a child. That England, with these facts before her, should have accused us of obtuseness in regard to art, and that we should have pleaded guilty to the charge, furnishes the strongest proof of her disposition to underrate our intellectual powers, and of our own ultra docility and want of self-reliance.

Not many years since, one of the illustrious and good men of America exclaimed in addressing the nation :

"Excudent alii mollius spirantia æra, Credo equidem; vivos ducent de marmore voltus !"

Since that period art has received a new impulse among us. Artists have arisen in numbers; the public gives its attention to their productions; their labors are liberally rewarded. It seems now admitted that wealth and cultivation are destined to yield in America the same fruits that they have given in Italy, in Spain, in France, Germany and England. It seems now admitted that there is no anomalous defect in our mental endowments; that the same powers displayed in clearing the forest and tilling the farm will trim the garden. It seems clear that we are destined to have a school of art. It becomes a matter of importance to decide how the youth who devote themselves to these studies are to acquire the rudiments of imitation, and what influences are to be made to act upon them. This question seemed at one time to have been decided. The friends of art in America looked to Europe for an example, and with the natural assumption that experience had made the old world wise in what relates to the fine arts, determined upon forming Academies as the more refined nations of the continent have ended by doing. We might as well have proposed a national church establishment. That the youth must be taught is clear -but in framing an institution for that object, if we look to countries grown old in European systems, it must be for warning rather than example. We speak from long experience and much observation of European Academies. We entertain the highest respect for the professional ability and for the personal character of the gentlemen who preside over those institutions. Nay, it is our conviction of their capacity and of their individual willingness to impart knowledge, which forces upon

us the opinion of the rottenness of the systems of which they are the instru

ments.

De Tocqueville remarks upon the British aristocracy, that, notwithstanding their sagacity as a body, and their integrity and high-toned character as individuals, they have gradually absorbed everything and left the people nothing; while he declares that the American employés, though they are sometimes defaulters and dishonest, yet, after all, get little beyond their dues, and are obliged to sacrifice both reputation and self-respect in order to obtain that little. Those who direct the Academies of Fine Arts in Europe, are prone to take an advantage of their position analogous to that enjoyed by the aforesaid aristocracy. As the latter come to regard the mass as a flock to be fed, and defended, and cherished, for the sake of their wool and mutton, so the former are not slow to make a band of educandi the basis of a hierarchy. Systems and manner soon usurp the place of sound precept. Faith is insisted on rather than works. The pupils are required to be not only docile but submissive. They are not free.

To minds once opened to the light of knowledge, an adept may speak in masses, and the seed will fall on good ground; but to awaken a dormant soul, to impart first principles, to watch the budding of the germ of rare talent, requires a contact and relations such as no professor can have with a class, such as few men can have with any boy. If Europe must furnish a model of artistical tuition, let us go at once to the records of the great age of art in Italy, and we shall there learn that Michael Angelo and Raphael, and their teachers also, were formed without any of the cumbrous machinery and millhorse discipline of a modern Academy. They were instructed, it is true; they were apprenticed to painters. Instead of passively listening to an experienced proficient merely, they discussed with their fellow students the merits of different works, the advantages of rival methods, the choice between contradictory authorities. They formed one another. Sympathy warmed them, opposition strengthened, and emulation spurred them on. In these latter days, classes of boys toil through the rudiments under the eye of men who are themselves aspirants for the public

favor, and who, deriving no benefit, as masters from their apprentices, from the proficiency of the lads, look upon every clever graduate as a stumblingblock in their own way. Hence their system of stupefying discipline, their tying down the pupil to mere manual execution, their silence in regard to principles, their cold reception of all attempts to invent. To chill in others the effort to acquire is in them the instinctive action of a wish to retain. Well do we remember the expression of face and the tone of voice with which one of these bashaws of an European Academy once received our praise of the labors of a man grown grey in the practice of his art, but who, though his works were known and admired at Naples and Petersburgh, at London and Vienna, had not yet won from the powers that were his exequatur "Yes, sir, yes! clever boy, sir! promises well!

The president and the professors of an Academy are regarded by the public as of course at the head of their respective professions. Their works are models, their opinions give the law. The youth are awed and dazzled by their titles and their fame; the man of genius finds them arrayed in solid phalanx to combat his claim. In those countries where a court bestows all encouragement, it is found easy to keep from those in power all knowledge of a dangerous upstart talent. How far this mischievous influence can be carried may be gathered from the position in which Sir Joshua Reynolds and his court managed to keep men like Wilson and Gainsborough. He who sees the productions of these men in company with those of their contemporaries, and who remembers the impression which Sir Joshua's writings had conveyed of their standing as artists, will perceive with surprise that they were not the victims of any overt act of misrepresentation, but that they were quietly and gently praised out of the rank due to them into an inferior one, by a union of real talent, constituted influence, and a sly, cool, consistent management.

Many of the ablest painters and sculptors of Europe have expressed to us directly and frankly the opinion that Academies, furnished though they be with all the means to form the eye, the hand and the mind of the pupil, are

positively hindrances instead of helps to art.

The great element of execution, whether in painting or in sculpture, is imitation. This is the language of art. Almost all clever boys can learn this to a degree far beyond what is supposed. That objects be placed before them calculated to attract their attention and teach them the rules of proportion, while they educate the eye to form and color, no one will dispute; but the insisting upon a routine, the depriving them of all choice or volition, the giving a false preference to readiness of hand over power of thought, all these are great evils, and we fully believe that they fall with a withering force on those minds especially whose nourishment and guidance they were intended to secure-we mean on those minds which are filled with a strong yearning after excellence; warm sympathies, quick, delicate, and nice perceptions, strong will and a proud consciousness of creative power of mind, joined to diffidence of their capacity to bring into action the energies they feel within them. The paltry prizes offered for the best performances seldom rouse men of this order; they may create in such souls an unamiable contempt for their unsuccessful competitors; they may give to successful mediocrity inflated hopes, a false estimate of its own powers. As a substantial help they are worthless even to the tyro who wins them.

Leonardo da Vinci coiled a rope in his studio, and drew from it, with the subtlest outline and the most elaborate study of light and shade. "Behold!" said he, "my academy!" He meant to show that the elements of art can be learned without the pompous array of the antique school or the lectures of the professor. Few will be tempted to follow his example; but even that were far better than a routine of instruction which, after years of drudgery and labor, sends forth the genius and the blockhead so nearly on a level with each other, the one manacled with precepts, the other armed with them at all points.

The above reflections have been drawn from us by the oft-repeated expressions of regret which we have listened to, "that from the constitution of our society, and the nature of our

« PreviousContinue »