Joseph Rocchietti

“ Not only theological discussions take the place of literature in the United States of America: there is, perhaps, no nation in the world of the present century, in which theocracy attempts to swallow up the people’s rights, though the constitution be against it. And, what power can it have, the wisest constitution, if the plurality, part by cunning, and part by ignorance, are undermining the very foundation of man’s only happiness, his sacred rights? ”

“ But, when we speak of a future civilization, we must bring our mind to a civilized, and educated population: a people, who can easily distinguish the cunning, roguish, or selfish from the open, sincere, or generous. And when the cunning, roguish, or selfish will find, that he can not get the esteem of his contemporaries, he will, of necessity, become open, sincere, or generous. We are the children of our education, and of the century in which we live. The virtuous, alone, can impart virtue: and refinement will force men to be refined. ”

“ And why does the unbeliever respect the piety of a Fenelon, and a Fenelon, the morals of an unbeliever? To those, who would be bribed in order to imitate a Bacon, I have only to say, that baboons will never reach immortality, when, instead of imitating Bacon’s fine qualities, they willingly embrace, rather, that wrong side of the writer, which suit best their own rapacious propensities.
Every gentleman, who experienced the scourge of tyranny, will maintain, that it is better to be poor in a free country, than to have a princely state without a country. ”

“ Still, though we know that every dog has its happy days, there are travelers who did not pass but six months in Italy, running through ten cities of that populous country, who, like Mr. Headley, asserted not to have seen one single pretty italian lady. I did pass myself more than six months in one single city of America, without having met one pretty lady, when to my astonishment, I met in that very city, on a public walk, beauties as cheerful as the sun. To bless this being of war, called man, nature did scatter beauties in every part of this singular planet. ”

“ There is, at present, in the United States of America, a fashionable, unwholsome, immoral practice of writing, which, although the ancients had not always been free of reproach, now a days, is rather too much frequented. I mean a kind of personal ridiculing, and retaliating each other’s national foible, unmercifully. If an english comes here, and finds faults with us, as no nation can be yet without faults, it is our duty to thank the writer, and correct ourselves. If the imputation is false, truth speaks for itself. ”

“ The love of ourselves is so firmly implanted in our heart, for which every honest being turns its eyes from death with disgust: and were it not mitigated with the idea of immortality, the man who coolly meditates on the loss of life, were it united with the utter annihilation of his soul, death would be too painful. Hence, we have not yet found any nation, which did not hope for a life to come; where the good, will receive the reward he cannot receive upon this land so badly governed.
Nothing is more sublime than the poetry of divine religion. ”

“ I say a gentleman: and those, who enjoy in their selfish wealth, without feeling any sympathy towards numerous human beings, struggling in want, are no gentlemen. Freedom is a Divinity, who does not leave in want her dutiful worshippers: and the Fathers’ ashes of this Union are still warm with the truth of this sacred sentiment. It is with sorrow of mind I hear unitedstatians asserting with sophisms, and without shame, that, as the best liberty is wealth, they do not adhere, but to those members of congress, whose speeches benefit right, or wrong, their only direct interest. ”

“ The poor people, bring here, to you, their mind, purified in the furnace of vicissitude, and suffering: their labor cleared and clear your deserted forests; they made and make your railroads, and built and build new cities, and forts, which frighten all the despots of this selfish earth. When your fathers left the despotism of their old country, they were no more natives of America, than the poor irish, who landed, here, yesterday. Had not Columbus discovered this continent, you would be still natives of Europe—the natives of the very brethren, whom you wish to drive away! ”

“ The production of nature is a providence, and a blessing to us all: but, the production of man, if not protected by law, it is a curse to man. The work of a writer is a seed (since you call it a seed) entirely different from all nature’s seeds. And had that genius never written such a production, the printer could never put his machine at work with which he should have no other right but to receive a lawful reward for his labor, at the time it should not be permitted him to pocket the writer’s reward also. ”

“ Tariff, Slavery, Annexation, Banking, Naturalization, Free trade, Direct taxation, and all the branches of political economy, must have nothing to do with party. Laborers, landlords, or capitalists should give way to their private little interest for the benefit of the plurality: and in all different branches of political economy, the country should never suffer for our private interest. If the citizen’s duty is to die for the country, how can a man call himself a citizen, if he does not feel the generosity of losing a little property for his country’s sake? ”

“ The gens d’armes entered, and carried him speechless, and lifeless out of the theatre. If this be the refined nature, and sensitive soul, love of music creates, heaven, keep me from it, and my countrymen. Give me a heart with chords that vibrate to human suffering, sooner than to the most ravishing melody, aye, that can hear nothing, and feel nothing else, when moving pity speaks. But, so the world goes—men will weep over a dying ass, then pitch a brother into the ditch. ”

“ Had, the writer of “Italy, and the Italians,” sounded a little more the italian heart, he might have found, that the woman, who turned insane, and the man who killed himself for love, cannot have looseness of morals. He, and she who feel love, have a heavenly mind, free from every immoral propensity; and the innocent girl in the private company of her lover, is more morally guarded, than by the most careful parent. I speak here of a lover, and not of those wretches, who dishonor love, and whose base passion renders them incapable of killing themselves for a woman. ”

“ And mind here, benevolent reader, that the Italy of Mr. Headley, is nothing else but the city of Genoa! He has not yet gone out of it.
To define beauty, I have nothing else to say, that a beauty is the beauty of different men, who have different sight, and different feeling. The artist will always draw it as he feels it himself. But, he who pretends to settle rules on beauty, must needs not know what beauty is. The beauty of one’s eyes cannot be the beauty of another, though rules we find settled by different nations. ”

“ The philosopher may point out the deficient knowledge which his contender might have of the science; but, he will never ask the impolite question, if he knows the science on which they are discussing. Philosophy, now a days, is no more under the banner of stoicism, peripateticism, cynism, or platonism, which were, at those times, nothing better, than religious sects. In our days, every one, who is able to demonstrate a truth, is a philosopher. ”

“ The republican, worthy of our race, I mean, of all men throughout the world, must not think for himself. His country should think for him. His God, body, and soul is his country: and to die for her, is his greatest reward. A republic is a beneficient mother, who does not leave in want her best generous children: and virtue with these is wealth, and prosperity.
A writer of comedies, or tragedies under a monarchial government, writes only to please his princes; and the people, present in that theatre, swallow from the mouth of subject actors, nothing but their shame. ”

“ Every human being who is not deprived of its senses is created for good purposes: and the difference of characters among different nations is what it forms the beauty of this earth. Human faults are not originated from nature; they are but the evil of false education. I do not think that one nation is naturally better than another: on the contrary; that which seems a fault to us, it might be a virtue, were it placed in its proper light. Though now, we feel ourselves, generally, in a better condition than those passed times of darker ages, perfection seems only granted to our posterity. ”

“ An artist cannot reach perfection, or eminence, without that which is requisite. Were two men of equal understanding, and ability; but one virtuous, and the other not, the second might appear eloquent, were he not compared with the former; but he cannot be but a pigmy before the noble virtue. The inspiration of heaven cannot emanate but from heaven. A clown cannot be a genius; and a genius, with the feeling of an unprincipled man—stranger to virtue, cannot speak the language of inspiration. ”

“ A despotical prince must, with time, die, or might be killed by a modern Brutus: a despotical law, acts despotically, without such a fear; while it prevents the free citizen to think with the free mind of republicans. And to be vigilant against the bad laws of a country like this, it is the duty of every citizen! A tyrannical law is worse than a living tyrant: and from the moment in which a nation finds an unjust law, and does not use immediately the required modifications, such a nation cannot be a republic. ”

“ A man of letters is indebted to all nations for his discrimination, and wisdom; and unless he writes with the feeling of a citizen of the world, his writings will never attain the purpose to profit mankind in general, and himself, without which a National Literature will always be in the clutches of national selfishness. We cannot write of heaven without looking to heaven. We are all children of one single destination: and we cannot expect civilization, until all nations will give to each other the hand of brotherly love. ”

“ But, many of them, who would have been the glory of their nation, did they not die on the straw? Many, who with their arts would have lifted up to heaven the mind of their contemporaries, finding themselves neglected, they turned their geniuses to the fashion of a coat, or a bonnet, the only means of getting a better living among citizens who think more of fashion, than of the culture of their mind. ”

“ Nothing is more disgusting than those individuals, whose sight being not longer than a span, pretend to judge of distances which they cannot see: and because they have never been better, thinking mankind a race incapable of moral perfection, or improvement, they call Plato, Rousseau, Bentham, and Fourier the dreamers of the ages, in which they lived, and of those to come, while they do not perceive that, had men never attempted to ameliorate human frailties, we would be still nothing better, than our ancient fathers—the cannibals. ”

“ Where is the enlightened nation, who would suffer, or support the orator, poet, or philosopher, were each of these literary men practically, and hypocritically polluting the temple of Virtue, the only Divinity, dictating order to our society? And here, by enlightened nation, I do not mean nations led by the furies of superstition, false religion, or fanaticism, the shame of mankind. Though virtue is not the only requisite faculty to form an eminent artist ”

“ Philosophy is nothing else but good sense, reason, or wisdom. Philosophy, in our age, it is that sense of justice to which all men, and women, who have integrity, when they think, judge, and compare by themselves, they do agree without pretension of being more learned than others. The philosopher speaks for better information, and [Pg 44] not for the price of being considered more learned than his neighbor. The philosopher is modest: if he speaks of divinity, he does not say to his contender: You have not yet studied the bible enough: and so of mathematics, geology, or astronomy. ”

“ That part of ethics which consists in the regulation, and government of a nation, or state for the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity, and the defence of its rights against foreign control, or conquest, with the preservation, and improvement of their morals, gives to the lawyer the very sense of justice on which all his eloquence should be grounded, in defending his client from the injustice of bad citizens. It is the man of integrity only, who can regulate the citizens’ actions, and their social intercourse. Politics, and laws are the best part of a National Literature. ”

“ If it is a fact that false religions, false politics, false pride brought desolation into the governments of the old continent; in giving an ear to our faults, our duty is not to be too much pleased of the praises which strangers, or americans bestow upon us, and our government; and sleep under the laurel of our glory. The honest lover of an innocent beauty looks upon her with jealousy, telling to her all her faults in order to render her perfect, without which two married beings cannot attain heavenly, moral happiness. ”

“ But, to love a cruel monkey, in the street, before the very victim, and this victim her beloved husband, over whom five minutes ago she shed bitter tears; to love the very Richard still reeking with her husband’s blood, at the very time in which he uses violence in stopping the sacred burial, to love him, I say, because he flatters her, it is the very parody, and the ridiculous caricature with which he wanted demonstrate the power of flattery in woman’s breast. Were woman such a selfish, vain, degraded being, the honest man would shudder at, and feel aversion rather than love the beauty. ”

“ It should be better you would print no moral books, and leave these citizens to follow the simple, and just dictates of Nature, never failing to teach us good morals, than to place them in the situation of buying moral books, with like immoral principles. To go to church, or to read a moral book, it is not enough; we must act accordingly. If a father finds in the library of his son one single book, the edition of which was the ruin of its publisher, or its author, his son could not have the feeling of a gentlemen at the time he bought it, for the less of its value. ”

“ Ten years ago the theatres in America were thought immoral places: and if Niblo’s theatre was frequented by the best class, it was for no other reason, but because it did pass under Niblo’s garden. Though every year the american theatre is gaining ground, and, as it seems, time will bring it to the consideration which it deserves, it is still in a state of infancy to what it should be: and it is just because it is in a bad repute, that talented american writers did not yet display their genius in such a rich branch of literature. ”

“ No nation has yet reached the civilization for which God created us. As the lover of a little discrimination sees better the faults of the lady whom he loves, than the faults of the ladies whom he does not love, a man of letters, who has at heart the improvements of society, sees the faults of all the countries, with which he feels an interest. ”

“ As in seeing a beautiful woman, whose proportions, though perfect in themselves, the almost imperceptible lines of cunning across her thought, and cheeks, repulse from man’s heart any sympathy of love, thus, if the fire of virtue is wanting in the breast of the orator, poet, or philosopher, he will never be able to inspire men of understanding, perspicacity, and sensibility. A spoiled woman may ensnare a weak man, and a soit disant orator ensnare also an ignorant people. ”