Various

“ By degrees, a spurious philosophy took possession of a large part of the intellect of continental Europe, and the deep degeneracy of the Papal system, which still claimed the exclusive honors of christianity, gave plausibility to an attack upon the whole of revealed religion. In the midst of this incipient regeneration of the world, there is one, a proud and mighty empire, that remains aloof! In the very heart of Christendom she has reared a temple, beautiful in its proportions and eloquent with grandeur!—whose worshipers are not of heaven. The dark banner of Infidelity is unfurled above it. ”

“ Here opens the mightiest revolution in the history of our globe—the introduction of Christianity. Forty centuries had been occupied in showing the impotency of unaided reason for the advancement of our race—and a new series of experiments now commences, to exhibit the evils of those human improvements which were soon engrafted on the simplicity of the Gospel. Christianity had a single object—to raise the spiritual nature of man above the sensual—to establish the dominion of reason, enlightened by Faith. It was the first system of religion which was favorable to the cause of freedom. ”

“ And yet, I tremble for thee, thou Peri, slight in thy person, pale, yet beautiful, glossy hair, and eyes as bright as Love ever looked on, and shrinking in thy native timidity as at the shadow of thine own happiness! ’Tis painful to look at thee, so young, so beautiful—knowing that thou must one day cast thine all—thy dreams—thy high hopes—thine innocent feelings—thy depths of woman’s tenderness into the hands of another—to hang upon him—to look to him for hope, for council, for happiness! ”

“ But for these qualities a mere love of entertainment is least remarkable, devouring indiscriminately what is often least valuable, and blindly rejecting the rest.
It deserves to be considered, whether this has not been too much the spirit of the readers of poetry. The maxim, that “it is the office of the poet to please, not to instruct,” ought not to be taken thus absolutely. It is indeed “sweetly uttered knowledge,” which the poet imparts, but is it the less knowledge? It is not indeed knowledge systematized, but not the less real knowledge of the human heart in all its relations. ”

“ We are treading on the golden age of History. All that it has of beauty, power and grandeur, are at once before us. On the confines of a dark and superstitious era we behold the fabric of a mighty Empire. ”

“ The very object indeed of resorting to reviews is to avoid tasking the mind. It is indeed vastly easier to take from the review opinions ready made, than to struggle to bring up into the light one’s own dim conceptions of excellence or defect, and to summon the mind to make account to itself. But as the result we have an unformed and lifeless acquaintance, with works even of the highest order—an acquaintance consisting, for the most part, of half-remembered, and half-forgotten crude opinions about them. ”

“ With all that we have to deplore of remaining ignorance and superstition on the one hand—and of restless and misapplied activity on the other—what age has ever witnessed such cheering prospects for the cause of Freedom and Christianity? As we look back on the past we see each succeeding revolution, sweeping away abuses and reading a great moral lesson to mankind!—while all have been pointing to the era, which seems now to have arrived, THE UNION OF WELL-REGULATED FREEDOM, AND A PURER FAITH, and all are eloquent in proof of the position we have labored to establish. ”

“ States and Empires it regards as rising only like the waves of the ocean, to give way to those that follow them—an endless succession of events, without one indication of plan or aim, to remind us of a governing Intelligence!
Laying aside these theories, as equally unworthy of man and of Him who made him,—with history for our guide, the monument at once of the rise and fall of nations,—what theory shall we form? What shall we affirm of history itself? ”

“ I have ever held this to be one of the little items that go towards making up the sum of human happiness; and as we ourselves cannot justly lay claim to that which we deny to others, and as I would at any sacrifice purchase thy good will, I must needs as a matter of course tell thee, how much I wish for thy prosperity. I cannot flatter thee, gentle reader, (and a wise man will not be flattered into fellowship,) else I should tell thee how much I respect thy good taste and sagacity, on all the delicate matters of nice criticism. ”

“ It pains me to think of what a world this is; to think of the hazard thou must ever run of losing thy bliss, and of being dashed on some of the hidden shoals that lurk beneath the current of human felicity ”

“ Antonio’s pistol rings upon the air. Hah! he staggers with his burthen, but struggles forward—in vain—he supports his sinking form against a rock, while his life blood ebbs fast away. With the look of a baffled fiend, he turns towards his pursuer. Rage and disappointment writhe his lip, while his brow grows pale in death. He seeks his sash, and a stiletto gleams in the moonlight. What means that strange, ghastly smile? Oh God! he cannot mean——the blow is struck, and as he sinks to the earth, the life blood of Zara mingles with his own upon the sands. ”

“ Let him consider it also, with direct reference to his own mind and heart. For this end, he should place himself on the broad ground of our common humanity, in distinction from any prejudice, or conventional mode of thinking. Viewing himself as a man, and as such recognizing the mind and the human feelings within his own breast, let him look upon literature, as the glorious expression of what is kindred to those, and as such demanding his sympathy. By this habit of constant reference to his own mind, he will acquire in literature, a permanent interest. ”

“ Witness the thousand persecutions it endures—the obstacles it overcomes—its silent and gradual extension, till, in the age of Constantine, “it ascends the imperial throne and waves its banner over the palace of the Cæsars.” To the eye of unassisted reason how glorious are the prospects of our race! Yet in the progress of three centuries, we see the wave of extermination sweep over that proud empire. ”

“ Fashionable life! what a variety of blunders, of ludicrous mistakes, of embarrassing scenes, rise up at the very phrase, mingled with the uproarious laughter of young men, and the suppressed titter of young ladies, the mere memory of which is sufficient to drive distracted a sensitive man. To my miserable, rustic education, I am indebted for a great share of my calamities. Before relating my experience in the world of fashion, I will attempt to convey to my readers an idea of some of the peculiarities of Droneville people. ”

“ Revelation has indeed assured us of the destiny of man. We know that the same grave which closes over his decaying body shrouds not the undying spirit—that earth is but the threshold to another state of being. ”

“ Such to unassisted reason is the history of nations. They spring up into being, linger for a fleeting period,—are cut down and perish—their origin, their progress and their end, alike mysterious and inexplicable! ”

“ There they stand—long hinnies and short hinnies, sylph-like hinnies and porpoise-like hinnies, in regular confusion, with pates arrayed in every variety of fantastical gear ever invented by womankind. Some were adorned with flowers, others with feathers; some, having strained their hair so tight from their foreheads that they could not wink, had twisted it into a pig’s-tail upon the top of their craniums; a few, of more classic taste, had parted their locks from their brows, a la Madonna; others suffered them to float in unbraided beauty, a la witch of Endor ”

“ There’s a forehead for you, shaded with fine dark hair—there’s an eye, deep, crystaline, full—there’s a cheek, delicate, perhaps too delicate—and above a prominent chin, there’s the pale thin lip of the scholar. His countenance is gentle, but there’s something of severity about the small closed mouth, and in the glitter of that eye—and yet all is calm, all is serenity, all is gentleness. No dark passions have had commission to mark that noble forehead—no feverish and fiery ambition have dared to light their hectic taper on that cheek—all is natural. ”

“ Earth is little better than a splendid waste of ruins,—a vast unbroken solitude, garnished with the sepulchers of countless myriads, and crowded with the relics of departed grandeur! There is the tyranny of Desolation! There Change is ever busy, wandering amid the wasting forms of beauty, gathering the banquet of Decay! ”

“ He comes forth as it were unbidden—mingles for a few short hours in earth’s sorrows and enjoyments,—hurries through the part assigned him in the mighty drama of existence, when the curtain closes and he vanishes forever. We tread over the “green roof of his dark mansion,”—and he lives but in remembrance. The works too of his hands are frail and fleeting. The proudest monument he rears, but scarce outlasts his memory—and the very dwelling which has sheltered him is hastening to destruction. ”

“ Without question, the effect of this kind of reading often, and indeed usually is, to overload the mind with a multitude of opinions which speedily pass from it, leaving it advanced in no respect except in an opinion of its own knowledge. Even where something more than mere entertainment is sought, the result is much the same. We would ask those who are so busy in collecting the opinions of others, how often an attempt is made effectually to reproduce those opinions in their own minds, and to test them by a careful study of the author in hand. ”

“ If literature is worth any thing, it is worth such study and such exertions, on the part of every one. He who studies it in this way, will not view the books which meet his eye with a languid and feeble interest; nor as so many subjects for examination, which are afterwards to be set aside, as a sort of explained phenomena. He will study their merits in order to welcome and appropriate them to himself, as the fruits of kindred minds. The wise and the good of all ages will thus become his friends and companions. ”

“ The sky that now bends over it so bright and beautiful may yet be clouded—the thunder of another revolution may be heard, and the lightnings of a mighty power may shake it to its center. These changes if they come, will hurry it along a burning track to its destined elevation. The promised redemption of our race, we trust is near at hand. It may be when the sun that now rides in light above us, shall look down on others who are soon to fill our places—while the temples of our worship are unshaken in their strength—when the stone that marks the place of our deposit, shall not yet have crumbled. ”

“ There is nothing which Droneville people resist so much as innovation. An attempt to change old customs, or to drive them from the well trodden path of their ancestors, will raise such a cackling among long-winded gossippers and slippery tongued spinsters, as would drive Beelzebub himself from the roost. Mr. Long Metre—a member of that fraternity who wander about teaching one half of the people how they can best squeal off the ears of the other half—attempted to reform Droneville choir. ”

“ For, we repeat it, it is by a direct reference to our own minds, as appealed to by the mind of another, that we must judge of literary worth.
Thus to qualify and attune the mind, is indeed a task. The necessity, however, is plain. We may now, also understand how it is33 that a man may with ease equal the critic whom he reads, and then flatter himself into the belief that he has compassed the author whom he has not the vigor and habits of mind necessary to appreciate. For want of them, the opinions of the critic will be either forgotten, or vaguely remembered or applied. ”

“ She had put on the garb, and even revived the principles of Paganism, while liberty, the attendent and ally of all genuine improvement, lay bound and bleeding at the feet of the Mistress of the world. Why then, knowing as we do—the ultimate result—why should we regard the dark period of nearly a thousand years, which followed, as giving any support to the Atheistic scheme of alternate elevation and decay? The feudal system, with all its errors, was the REMEDY applied to save the world from the destructive influence of a corrupted christianity, in union with despotic power. ”

“ Permit me sometimes in memory, to think upon the pleasant ramble we may have together—to think of its green and sunny spots, as well as its dark ones—of its pleasant, as well as disagreeable windings—and to enjoy the sweet consciousness of having sought to contribute to thine, a fellow creature’s happiness. ”

“ Upon whom? Euripides. By whom. Thucydides. Read it. It is instructive. The subject and the author are dead; but each sleeps under a stately tomb. Their works are their mausolea. But the idea—is it not affecting? Twenty-three centuries agone, a great historian weeping over the grave of a splendid poet!
Greece is thy tomb; but Sparta holds thy clay,
For there thy life beheld its latest day.
Athens—the Greece of Greece—first gave thee breath,
Dear to the muses, and renowned in death.
An epitaph, which Hippo ordered to be placed on his monument. ”

“ Or rather does each succeeding generation, standing on the graves of their forefathers, rise to a higher vantage ground, as the oaks of the wilderness in succession strike deeper roots, and grow more flourishing over the dust of their predecessors?”
The theory implied in these remarks, if properly stated and understood, is the true theory of the progress of society. It is a real progress. One after another of its empires may have risen, flourished for a time, and then crumbled into ruins. ”

“ To foster a literary spirit, and to furnish a medium for its exercise; to rescue from utter waste the many thoughts and musings of a student’s leisure hours; and to afford some opportunity to train ourselves for the strife and collision of mind which we must expect in after life;—such, and similar motives have urged us to this undertaking. ”

“ One of the earliest theories respecting the progress of society, has been the regular tendency of our race to decline and degradation. This theory, the result partly of tradition and partly of poetic fancy, carries back the mind to a golden age of primeval excellence, and represents the progress of mankind as a continual departure from a higher and a better state of being. ”

“ The sympathies are with the critic, not with the author. Besides this, reviews treat mostly of what is passing; the attention of the review reader is, therefore, in a great degree confined to that. Hence we have, in many of those who are thought to be acquainted with literature, a love for excitement, dependent on what is conventional and present, rather than a permanent interest resulting from broad and well grounded views. ”

“ Does it not, in the long line of ages, stand forth as a brilliant and attractive point, collecting by its brightness, every ray of knowledge and of science, to disseminate them wider through the nations of the earth? ”

“ Great geniuses bear the same leading traits in all climates, and their works are simple mental creations, rather than copies of the habits of their age. ’Tis familiarity with the various effusions of a thousand different pens—drinking from the heart’s overflowing fullness,—that thoroughly acquaints one with a people.
Reader, I am weary of these remarks, as I doubt not thou art. Therefore will I cease. And here would I advertise thee that I travel more for my own pleasure than for thine. ”