Page images
PDF
EPUB

with what rich and lovely spirits, did the endow- | So that he who is donning a beaver for life,

Should be sure at the start to well stock it with sense.
But some, I've no doubt, are quite ready to say.
That the poet belongs to the class he describes,
And his own imperfections should closely survey,
When others he dares to assail with his gibes;

ments of these men bring them! The shafts of misfortune were blunted against the panoply of serene thought and foiled aside by elevation of sentiment or blitheness of fancy. There is a nobleness in their lives which all they endured from pain | Well, he in all frankness acknowledges pat, and calumny, only more clearly developed. That That there is something wrong in the crown of his hat! they "dwelt apart," like stars, was no infelicity; for the radiant glow that still comes to us from those ideal heights, is our best assurance that they did not suffer in vain!

THE SOURCE OF MAN'S ERRORS.

BY SIDNEY DYER.

As the poet advises, I oft study man,

And have noted each trait that his nature displays,
And though I must leave him where first I began,
(Since truly but little is known of his ways)-
For the good of mankind I'll record what I've seen,
With the sage-like conclusions to which I have come;
Nor let any doubt me, I speak what I mean,

And of all my observings give this as the sum:
The main source of trouble, when justly come at,
Will always be found in the crown of the hat!

The world was made rightly, and, well understood,
Will be found in all parts to fulfill its design,
And we,
like its Maker, should still call it "good,"
Though all its dark phases we may not define;
For if, like the earth, man would keep in his sphere,
He would ne'er have occasion at fortune to fret;
And e'en should his eye be suffused with a tear,

"Tis a gem dropped from Heaven that brings no regret ;
Whoe'er then, is fretting with this or with that,
Must have something wrong in the crown of his hat!

The modern reformer, self-righteous and wise,

CITY AND VILLAGE LIFE.

The conditions which are favorable or unfavorable to the development of human character have always formed a subject of interesting speculation. All, from the fatalist who utterly denies moral responsibility to his antipode who makes free agency the entire basis of his system, admit the powerful influence of surrounding circumstances in elevating or debasing men. Despotism or liberty, mountains or plains, wealth or poverty, city, village, or country residence, with a thousand other things, give a coloring to man's existence, and leave their impress on human morals.

Nothing can be more remote from my intention on the present occasion, than an examination of this wide field of speculation, in all its aspects, moral, metaphysical and religious; I design on the contrary a very cursory view of a single corner.

The abominations of a great city have been the theme of satire or lamentation, from the days of Juvenal to those of John Foster. In them the masses of vice have always been so much larger, the temptations to it so much stronger, its abysses so much more profound and horrible, as to strike the most casual observer. So deeply has this been impressed on the minds of men, that most persons imagine that the young have escaped from the very

Who deems that the world was ne'er blest with the light, jaws of temptation, the moment they leave the en

Till he on its darkness was seen to arise

Like the sunbeams of morning dispelling the night, With clamor denounces both system and creed,

As vile impositions wherewith to deceive,

But proclaims to the world that his own they must heed,
And thunders at any, who dares disbelieve;
The poor silly wight is as blind as a bat,

For all has gone wrong in the crown of his hat!

The éléve of fashion believes the Creator,

When he first made the sex from the rib of the man,
Had no standard of beauty by which he could rate her,
So she tries to improve the original plan.
The waist is too large, and the hips are too small,
These she shapes with a bustle and that with a lace,
And finding a fault in the chief point of all,
Defaces with rouge the divine human face:
Now, if the poor ninny was not such a flat,
She'd find her defects in the crown of her hat!

And thus every failure and folly and strife,
That bothers us here, has its origin thence,

66

virons of a city, for some country retreat or sweet Auburn."

But the discriminating and experienced observer sees that a village has its disadvantages and dangers, as well as its advantages and exemptions. The temptations to destructive vices are certainly weaker and less frequently presented in a village; but, on the other hand, we are brought into more immediate and necessary contact with them. In a city we have a larger field of selection, and can, if we choose, easily find amid the multitude, given up to dissipation, our own circle of virtuous friends. In a village, where every inhabitant knows every other, it is difficult, without an appearance of puritanism or repulsive hauteur, to avoid giving into its prevalent follies or vices.

The selfishness of the inhabitants of cities is proverbial. It proceeds from several causes, which coöperate in making the heart cold and insensible.

Dissipation, in the most favorable sense of the Learning and advancing liberty have always had term, viz. distraction of thought among various their warmest and most efficient friends in cities. amusements, always disinclines us to fix our atten- Freedom once obtained in the country, especially a tion on what excites our real sympathies, and there- mountainous country, is more courageously and by checks the current of our pleasures. When tenaciously maintained; but inhabitants of cities dissipation sinks down the facilis descensus Averr.i have commonly led the van in shaking off the yoke into the depths of brutal and degrading vice, it of long-established oppression. It is in the history hates virtue, as its opposite and its reproach, and of the cities of Greece and Italy, that we find the makes us disregard the sufferings of our fellow- ancient exemplars of organized popular freedom. creatures, in our vain pursuit of the phantom plea- The wild liberty of the woods may have existed sure, which always eludes our grasp. elsewhere; but it was not the liberty of civilization, protected by wise laws.

Avarice, when it completely possesses its victim, makes him sacrifice the very heart of humanity to But it must be admitted that ancient freedom the idol which he worships; it is in cities, in the found its grave, where it had its cradle, in cities, hearts of its great speculators, gamblers and debau- when they had become degenerate and corrupt. chees, that this passion is most fearfully developed. The fierce barbarians from the northern forests, puThe very number of persons with whom we min-rified the fœtid atmosphere, by the tempest of their gle in a great city, lessens the amount of our feel-invasion. Yet it was again in the cities of Italy ing towards each. There must be some limit to first, and of other European countries afterward, human sensibility, however capable it may be of that freedom awoke from the gloomy sleep of the cultivation and expansion. When we see only a dark ages. few persons, with whose joys, sorrows and inter- The reason of this is obvious. It is in cities, ests our own are intimately blended, it is a wise that the lower classes most easily acquire knowand kind provision of nature that we should be ledge and wealth, which sooner or later must unwarmly attached to them. But when we are brought into perpetual contact of business or pleasure with multitudes, our quantum of attachment for each becomes very small-our affection, like water spread over a wide surface, exceedingly shallow. It is true that more courtly and affectionate manners prevail in cities; but they are meant to be agreeable, and mean nothing more: the impression made by the absence or death of a friend to whom our professions have been warmest, is, like an impression on water, immediately lost in the waves of business or pleasure.

dermine the privileges of an hereditary aristocracy. They have there most ready access to books, most frequent intercourse with men, both of their own and other countries, they there soonest shake off old and unfounded prejudices, soonest become fully aware of their rights, and determine to vindicate them. It was at Athens, and in Rome, that all those fierce conflicts and disturbances which shook their respective countries originated. It was in Paris and the other cities of France, that the old revolution had its earliest and warmest advocates, and at the same time the friends who most disgraced the cause by their excesses; and the same is doubtless true of the present.

Sensitiveness to human suffering is greatly deadened in those who, like the inhabitants of cities, have it presented to their eyes, in many forms, The light of freedom and truth is slowest in penreal or pretended. It may be that some noble ex-etrating to remote hamlets, where old superstitions ceptions, whose hearts are filled with true benevo- and prejudices longest linger, and last appear. In lence, like the physician whose pain in beholding these situations, heathenism held out longest against human suffering is diminished, when his capacity the spreading influence of christianity, as is proved to relieve it is increased,-find in cities the largest by the well-known origin of the words Pagans and and best field for exercising and improving their Paganism. powers of doing good. But the great mass, unin- It has often been remarked, that we are more fluenced by such principles, becomes indifferent to solitary in a large city, where we are not known, human pain and sorrow. This indifference is not than in a desert. We are tantalized by the appearconfined to suffering, but, what is even worse, ex-ance of society which seems within our reach, but tended to vice. which we cannot enjoy. The horror which a novice feels at the " mon- In large cities, for the same reason, criminals ster's frightful mien," wears away, when his fea- most easily escape the eye of justice. Where men tures become familiar in daily intercourse. Take of all descriptions jostle us in every thoroughfare, a young man of twenty raised in a city, and ano- we pass unnoticed even those individuals who wear ther of the same age in a village, and you will commonly find the latter shocked at depravity which would only provoke a smile or a leer in the former. But in considering the moral dangers which beset the inhabitants of cities, we must not forget their advantages.

the mark of Cain on their brows, and whose very appearance in times of suspicion would lead to their arrest in villages. In villages privacy is impossible. Wo be to the thief or murderer who seeks an asylum, in such a situation, however remote. The spirit of Aunt Charity animates the whole

population, and the death or incarceration of the succession of new objects which there attracts the poor wretch will be inevitable, wherever convic-public gaze.

tion of crime is possible in these days of packed In a retired village or hamlet, however, a family or juries, and executive pardons.

party feud, once originated, descends from generation to generation, and makes society the prey of the most diabolical passions; it blasts like a simoon the purity, calm and peace which seem naturally to belong to the situation.

But while this effect of village curiosity is beneficial, its ordinary and every day influence is a horrible scourge and tyranny. The hired police of Fouché was not a whit more vigilant and prying, than the volunteer corps of spies and eavesdrop- Some speak, as if there were actually no temppers which infests every village. These, although tations at all in villages. There may be no theathey have not the murderous intentions of pirates, tres, no splendid eating or drinking houses, no ought to be ranked with them, as hostes humani elegant incitements to debauchery; but there are generis. The injury which they inflict is indis- never wanting means amply sufficient to seduce criminate, falling alike on friend and foe, old and frail humanity. Burke's famous expression, "vice young, and sparing neither sex nor age. Indeed loses half its evil in losing all its grossness," is they commonly have greatest power to injure, and do actually most injure their dearest friends. They betray private confidence with more eagerness, than Arnold would have betrayed West Point, though with less criminal intentions. Yet this treachery of tongue is far more fatal to the peace of society, than the loss of that fortress could have proved to the cause of our revolutionary fathers. Losing it then, they would have required a longer time and greater effort, to secure their independence; but it was not in the power of treachery to prevent its ultimate advent. The wounds inflicted on friendship and good neighborhood, by careless or malignant tale-bearing, are often incurable.

The most attached friends and relatives seldom consider each other perfect, and occasionally, in moments of provocation or mere indiscretion, give utterance to their sentiments. Such is the common impatience of reproof or censure, especially when uttered in our absence, that a communication of it will often alienate friends who are prepared to stand by each other to the death.

dangerously false, when we look at the influence of example on others; the seductive power of vice is increased ten fold by stripping it of its grossness. Still when applied to the vicious themselves, the opinion, if not actually true, is at least more plausible. This is more especially the case in cities, where those who are seduced, by general example, into the fashionable vices, often redeem them by elegant manners and accomplishments, as well as other more substantial qualities.

But those who are vicious at all in villages, are usually coarsely and disgustingly vicious, so that they soon become completely brutalized.

The inhabitants of villages, must therefore beware of sitting down in the security, that they have nothing to do but "eat, drink” and be good. Perpetual vigilance is the price of moral, as well as civil purity and freedom.

A VILLAGER.

THE STRANGERS.

This may be the case, even when the naked truth only is communicated. But the truth, usually passing in such cases, through several strongly refracting lenses, before it reaches the mental vision is violently distorted, even if no glass be used to produce an absolute inversion. The most harm- "One of those forms which flit by us, when we less jest thus becomes the deadliest insult; the sor-Are young, and fix our eyes on every facerowful and reluctant admission of faults in a friend, proof of positive malice.

*

*

*

[ocr errors]

Whose course and home we know not, nor shall know,

There is a beauty on that brow of light,

The buzzing of these insects, always annoying Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below."-Beppo. and injurious, becomes absolutely insufferable, when a village community happens to be divided into factions by some fierce local controversy. If man were endowed with the same unerring instinct of self-preservation, as the horse, they would be exterminated or driven out, before they had time to deposit those fatal eggs, from which are hatched the most malignant controversies.

We are not to imagine these vermin absolutely incapable of living and doing" their dirty work" in large cities; wherever man exists they are found; but they are comparatively unnoticed and harmless, amid the din of a large population, and the rapid

Changing like shadows on a moonlit sky,
When the transparent clouds, serenely bright,
In magic numbers vanish swiftly by.

There is a beauty, soft, and calm, and pure,
Within the sweet depths of those azure eyes,
Like the reflection of a twilight shore,
That in the lake's untroubled bosom lies.

Thou art a stranger: yet a spell of pow'r,

Comes o'er my soul as thus I gaze on thee,

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »