James Parton

“ Over all these bridges there is a ceaseless tide of human life, and in the river below, besides long lines of ships at anchor and unloading, there are as many steam-vessels, barges, skiffs, and wherries as can find safe passage. A scene more animated, picturesque, and grand is nowhere else presented, especially when the great black dome of St. Paul's is visible, hanging over it, appearing to be suspended in the foggy atmosphere like a black balloon, the cathedral itself being invisible. ”

“ It is only when you get close to the bust of Astor, observing the strength of each feature and its perfect proportion to the rest,—force everywhere, superfluity nowhere,—that you recognize the monarch of the counting-room; the brain which nothing could confuse or disconcert; the purpose that nothing could divert or defeat; the man who could with ease and pleasure grasp and control the multitudinous concerns of a business that embraced the habited and unhabited globe,—that employed ships in every sea, and men in every clime, and brought in to the coffers of the merchant the revenue of a king. ”

“ Her works, skilfully planned and carefully wrought out in this noble spirit, fully establish her the noblest female poet of the world. Her genius, working in every effort of her mind, enabled her to infuse passion and enthusiasm into an otherwise cumbrous mass of knowledge. Her soul, refreshed by intercourse with the master minds of all ages, rose above even the intensest physical suffering and bodily weakness, to give new utterance to the grand truths of humanity, and to cheer her fellow-toilers and sufferers. ”

“ What does a glass of wine do to us when we have swallowed it?
We should naturally look to physicians for an answer to such a question; but the great lights of the profession—men of the rank of Astley Cooper, Brodie, Abernethy, Holmes—all assure the public, that no man of them knows, and no man has ever known, how medicinal substances work in the system, and why they produce the effects they do. Even of a substance so common as Peruvian bark, no one knows why and how it acts as a tonic; nor is there any certainty of its being a benefit to mankind. There is no science of medicine. ”

“ In the life of the Old World there is nothing so shocking to a republicanized mind as the awful contrast between the abodes of the poor and the establishments of the rich. A magnificent park of a thousand acres of the richest land set apart and walled in for the exclusive use of one family, while all about it are the squalid hovels of the peasants to whom the use of a single acre to a family would be ease and comfort, is the most painful and shameful spectacle upon which the sun looks down this day. ”

“ And was there ever, since sacred childhood first appealed for protection to the human heart, a child so unhappily placed as that baby king, an orphan, with a roué for a guardian, a smooth, insinuating priest for preceptor, and a dissolute court conspiring to corrupt him? The priest, who represented what then passed for virtue, taught him virtue out of a dreary catechism, still extant, which never yet elevated or nobly formed a human soul—a dead, false thing, with scarcely an atom in it of sound nutrition for heart or mind. ”

“ There are two mornings of the year on which newspapers have not hitherto been published in the city of New York,—the 5th of July, and the 2d of January. A shadow appears to rest on the world during those days, as when there is an eclipse of the sun. We are separated from our brethren, cut off, lost, alone; vague apprehensions of evil creep over the mind. We feel, in some degree, as husbands feel who, far from wife and children, say to themselves, shuddering, "What things may have happened, and I not know it!" ”

“ On looking over the articles upon tobacco in the Encyclopædias, we occasionally find writers declaring or conjecturing that, as smoking has become a habit almost universal, there must be, in the nature of things, a reason which accounts for and justifies it. Accounts for it, yes; justifies it, no.
So long as man lives the life of a pure savage, he has good health without ever bestowing a thought upon the matter. Nature, like a good farmer, saves the best for seed. The mightiest bull becomes the father of the herd; the great warrior, the great hunter, has the most wives and children. ”

“ Death, standing in a grave, pulls the grave-digger in by the leg; seated on a plow, he seizes the farmer; with an ale-pot at his back, he throttles an inn-keeper who is adulterating his liquors; he strikes with a bone the irksome chain of matrimony, and thus sets free a couple bound by it; he mows down a philosopher holding a clock; upon a miser who has thrust his body deep down into a massive chest he shuts the heavy lid; he shows himself in the mirror in which a young beauty is looking; to a philosopher seated in his study he enters and presents an hour-glass. ”

“ The word newspaper is the exact and complete description of the thing which the true journalist aims to produce. The news is his work; editorials are his play. The news is the point of rivalry; it is that for which nineteen twentieths of the people buy newspapers; it is that which constitutes the power and value of the daily press; it is that which determines the rank of every newspaper in every free country.
No editor, therefore, will ever reign over the United States, and the newspapers of no one city will attain universal currency. Hence the importance of journalism in the United States. ”

“ Even if science did not justify the conjecture, I should be disposed, for the honor of human nature, to lay the blame of all this upon tobacco.
To a man who is uncorrupt and properly constituted, woman remains always something of a mystery and a romance. He never interprets her quite literally. She, on her part, is always striving to remain a poem, and is never weary of bringing out new editions of herself in novel bindings. Not till she has been utterly conquered and crushed by hopeless misery or a false religion does she give up the dream of still being a pleasant enchantment. ”

“ The first few days, the cessation from labor may be a relief and a pleasure to a large number—a holiday, although a dull and tedious holiday, like a Sunday without any of the alleviations of Sunday—Sunday without Sunday clothes, Sunday bells, Sunday church, Sunday walks and visits. A painful silence reigns in the town. People discover that the factory bell calling them to work, though often unwelcome, was not a hundredth part as disagreeable as the silence that now prevails. The huge mills stand gaunt and dead; there is no noise of machinery, no puff of steam, no faces at the windows. ”

“ Browning became deeply interested in the fate of her new country, whose historical associations were so noble, but whose people had long seemed to be sunk in death. Though she had long before said of herself, "I, who am a woman, am not made for war," that in truth was one of the objects for which she lived. She was a battle-trumpet, sounding loud and long to wake the sleeping nation to newness of life. When the Revolution of 1848 stirred Italy from the Alps to Sicily she rejoiced in the fulfilment of her hopes. ”

“ It is doubtful if a bad man with the wealth of an empire at his command could procure the execution of one first-rate caricature hostile to the public good. A despot can never fight this fire with fire, and has no resource but to stamp it out.
Vainly, therefore, will the most vigilant collector search for French caricatures of Napoleon Bonaparte published during his reign. His government was a despotism not tempered by epigrams, and it was controlled by a despot who, though not devoid of a sense of humor, had all a Corsican's mortal hatred of ridicule. ”

“ Our whole observation of the daily press convinces us that its power to do good arises chiefly from its giving the news of the day; and its power to do harm chiefly from its opportunity to comment upon the news. Viewed only as a vehicle of intelligence, the Herald has taught the journalists of the United States the greater part of all that they yet know of their profession; regarded as an organ of opinion, it has done all that it was ever possible for a newspaper to do in perverting public opinion, debauching public taste, offending public morals, and dishonoring the national character. ”

“ And this is the true reason why almost every lady of spirit is the irreconcilable foe of tobacco. It is not merely that she dislikes the stale odor of the smoke in her curtains, nor merely that her quick eye discerns its hostility to health and life. These things would make her disapprove the weed. But instinct causes her dimly to perceive that this ridiculous brown leaf is the rival of her sex. Women do not disapprove their rivals; they hate them.
Smoking certainly does blunt a man's sense of cleanliness. It certainly is an unclean habit. ”

“ It is very curious, but somehow, though I have none, of the pains and troubles that old men talk about, I have not the same luxury of life—the same relish in the mere act of living—that I had then. Age is like babyhood come back again in a certain way. Even the memories of baby-life come back—the tricks, the pranks, the boyish dreams; and things that I did not remember at forty or fifty years old I recollect vividly now. But a boy of ninety and a boy of nine are very different things, none the less. I never felt better in my life except for twinges occasioned by my nitrogen experiment. ”

“ All good fathers, all good mothers, and all persons worthy to become such, delight in them. They are such pictures as we should naturally expect from an artist who was himself the happy father of a houseful of happy children, and who consequently looked upon all the children of the world in a fond, parental spirit. Surely no Bohemian, no hapless dweller in a boarding-house, no desolate frequenter of clubs, no one not sharing in the social life of his time, could so delightfully represent and minister to it. Du Maurier vindicates the generation that has produced Gavarni and Woodhull. ”

“ Thus, friends and citizens, did the kind hand of overruling Providence conduct us, through toils, fatigues, and dangers, to independence and peace. If piety be the rational exercise of the human soul, if religion be not a chimera, and if the vestiges of heavenly assistance are clearly traced in those events which mark the annals of our nation, it becomes us on this day, in consideration of the great things which have been done for us, to render the tribute of unfeigned thanks to that God who superintends the universe, and holds aloft the scale that weighs the destinies of nations. ”

“ The institution, after it was open, remained for two years under the blight of this person's control. Everything he did was wrong. Ignorant, obstinate, passionate, fussy, and false,—plausible and obsequious at Albany, a violent despot at the Asylum,—he was, of all the people in the world, the precisely worst man to conduct an experiment so novel and so abounding in difficulties. If he had a theory, it was that an inebriate is something between a criminal and a lunatic, who is to be punished like the one and restrained like the other. ”

“ Punch is now exhibited daily in every civilized and semi-civilized land or earth—in China, Siam, India, Japan, Tartary, Russia, Egypt, everywhere. A New York traveler, well known both for the extent of his journeys and for the excellent use he has made of them, tells me that he saw, not long ago, a performance of Punch at Cairo, in a tent, in Arabic, a small coin being charged for admission. The people entered with a grave demeanor, sat in rows upon the sand, listened to the dialogue without a smile, and at the close filed out in silence, as if from a solemnity. ”

“ Imagine Columbus within sight of the new world, and his obstinate crew declaring it was only a mirage, and refusing to row him ashore! Never was mortal man surer that he had a fortune in his hand, than Charles Goodyear was when he would take a piece of scorched and dingy India-rubber from his pocket and expound its marvellous properties to a group of incredulous villagers. Sure also was he that he was just upon the point of a practicable success. Give him but an oven, and would he not turn you out fire-proof and cold-proof India-rubber, as fast as a baker can produce loaves of bread? ”

“ Vast and imposing structures rise on the banks of the Schuylkill, wherein, at this hour, six hundred poor orphan boys are fed, clothed, trained, and taught, upon the income of the enormous estate which he won by this entire consecration to the work of accumulating property. In the ample grounds of Girard College, looking up at its five massive marble edifices, strolling in its shady walks or by its verdant play-grounds, or listening to the cheerful cries of the boys at play, the most sympathetic and imaginative of men must pause before censuring the sterile and unlovely life of its founder. ”

“ Before the bottom of the family kettle is scorched black the husband will be sick of his bargain—a wife all untidy about the head, her apron fastened round her as a girdle, a baby twisted somehow into the bosom of her dress, and nothing in the house to eat but some wretched bean-soup, and that bought at a store. "What a ten-million-times miserable thing it is when parents, making their little girls hug a great guitar, listen with pleasure to the poor little things playing on instruments big enough for them to climb upon, and squeaking out songs in their shrill treble voices!" ”

“ The philosopher speaks: "Why callest thou me, thou creature of a day?" "Tell me, first, I beg, what you are doing up there." "I am walking in the air, and speculating about the sun; for I should never have rightly learned celestial things if I had not suspended the intellect, and subtly mingled Thought with its kindred Air." All this is in the very spirit of caricature. Half of Aristophanes is caricature. In characterizing the light literature of Greece we are reminded of Juvenal's remark upon the Greek people, "All Greece is a comedian." ”

“ The time has passed for any public man to claim credit for "consistency." A person who, after forty years of public life, can truly say that he has never changed an opinion, must be either a demigod or a fool. We do not blame Mr. Calhoun for ceasing to be a protectionist and becoming a free-trader; for half the thinking world has changed sides on that question during the last thirty years. A growing mind must necessarily change its opinions. But there is a consistency from which no man, public or private, can ever be absolved,—the consistency of his statements with fact. ”

“ The grim and threatening skeletons, the ghosts of those whom Carignano had betrayed, the tormented look of the flying king, the malediction in the heavens, the solitude of the earth and the sea, display a concentrated power of imagination rare in art. ”

“ Of our public men of the sixty years preceding the war, Henry Clay was certainly the most shining figure. Was there ever a public man, not at the head of a state, so beloved as he? Who ever heard such cheers, so hearty, distinct, and ringing, as those which his name evoked? Men shed tears at his defeat, and women went to bed sick from pure sympathy with his disappointment. ”

“ No, nor in all the length and breadth of English-speaking lands can there be found a small boy who, on being lectured by his father, would place one hand upon his heart, and lift the other on high, and say, "Papa, by all that I hold dearest, by my honor, by your ashes, by any thing you like, I swear to change my conduct!" All these things are so remote from our habits that the wildest artist could not conceive of them as passable caricature. ”

“ Any intelligent politician, outside of the circle of his own "friends," could have told him, and proved to him, that he had little more chance of being elected President than the most insignificant man in the Whig party. And the marvel is, that he himself should not have known it,—he who knew why, precisely why, every candidate had been nominated, from Madison to General Taylor. In the teeth of all the facts, he still cherished the amazing delusion that the Presidency of the United States, like the Premiership of England, is the natural and just reward of long and able public service. ”

“ Jefferson was a States' Rights man, and a strict constructionist, because he was a republican; Randolph, because he was a Virginian, Jefferson thought the government should be small, that the people might be great; John Randolph thought the government should be small, that Virginia might be great. Pride in Virginia was John Randolph's ruling passion, not less in 1790; than in 1828, The welfare and dignity of man were the darling objects of Thomas Jefferson's great soul, from youth to hoary age. ”

“ The three men most distinguished in public life during the last forty years in the United States were Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster. Henry Clay improved as he grew old. He was a venerable, serene, and virtuous old man. The impetuosity, restlessness, ambition, and love of display, and the detrimental habits of his earlier years, gave place to tranquillity, temperance, moderation, and a patriotism without the alloy of personal objects. Disappointment had chastened, not soured him. Public life enlarged, not narrowed him. The city of Washington purified, not corrupted him. ”

“ The world was absolutely nothing to him but a working-place. He scorned and scouted the opinion, that old men should cease to labor, and should spend the evening of their days in tranquillity. "No," he would say, "labor is the price of life, its happiness, its everything; to rest is to rust; every man should labor to the last hour of his ability." Such was Stephen Girard, the richest man who ever lived in Pennsylvania.
This is an unpleasing picture of a citizen of polite and amiable Philadelphia. It were indeed a grim and dreary world in which should prevail the principles of Girard. ”

“ I flatter myself that none of my friends ever thought me greatly absorbed in the sin of avarice, yet I assure you, Jem, that in these days of poverty I look upon a round dollar with a great deal of complacency. These rascal dollars are so necessary to the comfort of life, that next to a fine wife they are most essential, and their acquisition an object of prime importance. O Bingham, how blessed it would be to retire with a decent, clever bag of Rixes to a pleasant country town, and follow one's own inclination without being shackled by the duties of a profession! ”

“ In consequence of the adoption of our present system of government, and the virtuous manner in which it has been administered by a Washington and an Adams, we are this day in the enjoyment of peace, while war devastates Europe! We can now sit down beneath the shadow of the olive, while her cities blaze, her streams run purple with blood, and her fields glitter with a forest of bayonets! The citizens of America can this day throng the temples of freedom, and renew their oaths of fealty to independence ”

“ The Tribune has done great and glorious things for us. Not free, of course, from the errors which mark all things human, it has been, and is, a civilizing power in this land. We hope to have the pleasure of reading it every day for the rest of our lives. One thing it has failed to do,—to reduce the Herald to insignificance by surpassing it in the particulars in which it is excellent. We have no right to complain. We only regret that the paper representing the civilization of the country should not yet have attained the position which would have given it the greatest power. ”

“ The universe, which loves not the high-toned, even in violins, disowned them, and they perished. Cut off from the life-giving current of thought and feeling which kept the rest of Christendom advancing, they came to love stagnation, and looked out from their dismal, isolated pool with lofty contempt at the gay and active life on the flowing stream. They were not teachable, for they despised the men who could have taught them. But we are bound always to consider that they were subjected to a trial under which human virtue has always given way, and will always. ”