Library Collections: Document: Full Text

Another first of April! Dear reader, the compliments of the season to thee. We do not know how thou wilt take this. But if thou wilt break off from thy carking cares -- go in fancy for a moment to merry old Eng-land, where the first of April is held to be a Saint, and throw thyself, mind, body and heart, into the joys and glories of this blessed day, we know that thou wilt take it kindly. All there, from grand-papa down to baby, are full of making fools, not getting tipsy nor making others so, not pulling wool, doing or diddling people, but doing every thing in love, and adding more breadth to their faces, more length to their girth strap and more days to their life, than were bestowed even by the blessed holidays at Yule. Do as they do, and thou wilt be better and wiser; never will phrenzy or melancholy of thine bring thee to the Gallows or Lunatic Asylum.

Considerable anxiety is sometimes expressed by persons who derive a morbid satisfaction from looking on scenes of human misery, as to the propriety, safety, &c., of their visiting the Asylum. This diseased state of the sentiments is most incident to those who have been badly educated, and who, especially, have not been taught to fol-low up feeling by the corresponding actions. They are mightily stirred by a story of distress, but never think of an effort to relieve it. The natural tie between emotion and conduct has suffered a violent disruption. -- We do not like to see such people passing through our halls. The authoress of the following letter belongs to the class we have been describing, and a decent respect for her sex demands that we should not pass it by unnoticed.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE OPAL:

SIR, -- My father is a citizen of the State of New-York, and a voter in regular standing, and he has told me that by reason of these things he and his family have free admission to the Asylum. As I have not much to do at home, (mother and the help doing all the work,) I proposed a few days ago that we should have a good sleigh-ride and fetch up at the Asylum. We were a merry party. When we got up on the big stoop and among the stone pillars, we were surprised to I have a man say to us, that "it was past the hour for visitors." We were indigant of course, and told him that we had come to go through the Asylum, and not to learn the time of day. He said that he would speak to some one; and soon a man came to us, (a mighty handsome one by the way,) and fixing a great searching black eye upon us, said to us that we might go through; but he scared us all by cautioning us with a tone and look, which I shall never forget, to bear in mind that we were in a Hospital for the Insane. So we went round. Every thing was as clean as clean can be. (I hope mother wont go there; for she it forever dinging at me about dirt in my room): We were all disappointed. For all we could see, the patients look and act like other people. We asked our guide, who was civil enough, if he would'nt take us where we could see something. He politely bowed us away to the sleigh.

Now, Sir, if this is all that one can see in your place, I beg leave to tell you that I shall not visit it again, and shall dissuade all my friends from doing so.

This it all at present from

Yours to command,
ARAMINTA C. STUBBS.

P.S. - Pray, is not the young man who went round with us a bit of a wag, or is he one of the patients.
A.C.S.

Miss Araminta C. complains that "for all she could see, the patients look and act like other people." Ah -- could she look into the inner soul of those who so apparent composure has so disappointed her sickly and vulgar anticipations! Could she see the heart aching with a grief which will not and cannot be comforted -- or withered by long and solitary indulgence in thoughts of the neglect or scorn of the world, which, whether real or imaginary, cannot be removed by the sympathising tones nor cheering smiles of that love which always soothes and animates a mind in trouble -- or torn and racked by passions which are always contending with each other, and, having no reality for their object, may never give any outward manifestation of the agonizing tumult which reigns within!

But Araminta complains, that she was not I taken where she could "see something." -- What does she mean by something? Is it slam-bang, kick, rear up, smash windows, make fun, and yell? Such things are to be seen outside of, as well as within the Asylum; but however entertaining they might be to the lady, the performance of them might hazard her safety. There are, we own, many queer cases amongst us, whose idiosyncrasies, while they are very funny, never endanger the safety of the most timid or the most pure. There is especially one little fellow whose ideas run incessantly on osculation. An uncontrollable desire to kiss every thing he sees is his failing. And the dreadful looks of the objects he sometimes selects for this pastime are the chief grounds for declaring him insane.

While we are on this subject, it may be well, by way of warning, to say that the Superintendent is obliged by every consideration of humanity, and, we believe authorized by law to detain all those persons, who, though supposing themselves to be visits to yet act in such a way as to justify the conclusion that they will derive benefit from the sanative principle of such an Institution as this. Great circumspection therefore should be maintained by all visitors -- especially young men. A striking instance of the consequences of neglecting this caution appears in the Journal of Insanity, and is as follows:

"It is reported of Sir Edward Sugdes, that when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he visited, somewhat by surprise, a lunatic asylum in the neighborhood of Dublin, to satisfy himself as to its condition. A hasty notification of his visit is said to have got there just before his arrival, but one a good deal colored by the waggish propensities of the sender, (whoever he was,) and the head of the establishment chancing to be absent, the notification, in all its coloring, was accepted as truth, and so acted upon by the subordinate official.

"In consequence, Sir Edward is said to have found himself somewhat unceremoniously treated while awaiting, in the parlor the return of the proprietor; and when his patience had become exhausted, and he signified his intention of going over the establishment without delay, he was struck aghast by being informed by the attendant that he could not be allowed to do it.

"'Can't be allowed to do it! What do you mean, fellow?' asked the indignant Chancellor.

"'I mean just what I say, then. You can't go; so you may as well be quiet.'

"'What do you mean by this insolence! Open the door, Sir, and shew me to my carriage. I shall report your conduct, and if your master does not punish you, I shall take steps to make both of you respect my authority.'

"'Oh, be asy now with your authority; keep quiet. I tell you. Divil a foot you'll stir out of this, till the Docthur comes back, and puts you where you want to be sadly.'

"'What's the meaning of all this? Don't you know who I am, fellow, or are you mad?'"

"'Oh, faith, there's one of us mad sure enough. Troth, I know you very well, if that's all that's throubling you.'

"'You can't know me, or you would'nt thus behave to me. I am the Lord Chancellor of Ireland,'

"'Lord Chancellor? Will, sure you're welcome home to us. We have three or four Lord Chancellors here already.'

"And the story goes that Sir Edward had to submit until the return of the proprietor and manager of the asylum, an hour or two later, when, with some difficulty, he established his identity and sanity, and was, more, a free man.

"'I know not how the case may be,
"'I tell the tale as 'twas told to me.'"

Musings of an Invalid, J. S. Taylor, New-York. -- "We are a wonderful nation," and in no respect more wonderful than in the quality of the books which are written, printed and read amongst us. When we consider the activity of our people, that ninety-nine out of every hundred are occupied ten or twelve hours of each day in some physical employment, which secures the subsistence and almost always results in some degree of independence, it is a question of serious importance, how we shall fill up, in the most profitable manner the remaining hours which are not given to sleep. A slight acquaintance with the literature of the country, the vast number of newspapers, pamphlets and books which circulate amongst us, serves to convince us that, by a very large majority, this leisure time is devoted to reading. But is it profitable reading? Are the character improved by the employments of those precious -- precious hours? Are the reader's sentiments refined and elevated, are his views enlarged and his sympathies made more comprehensive by the knowledge which he acquires -- and, above all, is he inspired with such wishes and hopes as will counteract the selfish, debasing, and earthward tendencies, of his ordinary employment?

The small portion of time, which is allowed for reading to the masses of our communities, renders almost no necessary a frivolous or superficial taste in those who purchase books, and a corresponding levity and shallowness in the attaiments -sic- and qualifications of authors. Universally, the supply of an article will be proportioned to the demand for it. If, light reading alone will pay, the writer will inevitably sink to the level of attainment and endeavor which will suffice to meet the wants of those on whom he depends for patronage. The standard of literature becomes debased. The author, descending from that lofty position, from which it was his privilege to adorn, instruct and reform his fellow-men, employs his powers, not (to use Bacon's noble phrase) in "promoting the glory of God and in the relief of man's estate," but in securing some petty advantage of personal popularity or emolument. No longer the leader, he becomes the follower of the public taste. The effects on the real interests of society is disastrous. The Lockes, the Cudworths, the Addisons and Miltons of past times are displaced and forgotten; and in their stead we have a swarm of multitudinous ephemera in the shape of lecturers or authors -- the former of whom undertake in an hour to furnish an audience with the accumulated wisdom or folly of ages; while the latter, by a kind of homoeopathic process, dilutes and dilute, some drop of ancient condensed wisdom, until it is weakened into a volume of verbiage and enervating illustration.

Nor is this superficial and vicious feature of our literature without its influence even on the professed collector of books. We have known an enthusiastic bibliopole as ignorant as another man, though walled round by thousands of cotton-covered tomes. -- Book-gathering has become fashionable. -- Excellence in the contents is no part of the treasure. And in many a proprietor of what fine library, we may find almost realized the description of a case, of Bibliomania by the great English Satirist:

"On buying books Lorenzo long was bent;
But found at length that it reduced his rent.
His were flown -- when lo, a sale comes on,
A choice collection. What is to be done?
He sells his last; for he the whole will buy --
Sells e'en his house; nay, wants whereon to lie;
So high the generous ardor of the man,
For Romans, Greeks, and Orientals ran.
When terms were drawn and brought him by the clerk,
Lorenzo signed the bargain with his mark."

How shall this great evil be remedied? -- It does not exist in other countries. In them, books, on account of their high price, are not so attainable by the mass of the people, perhaps a happy and enviable condition of things. "0," said a most faithful and learned Clergyman to us, "0, that I had a congregation that could not read." This wish, however, cannot be gratified. We are, nationally, readers. Our only alternative is to begin in the school -- cultivate the common sense love for beauty and moral sentiments of our children; and in after life, we may hope, that the nonsense, bad taste and bad morality, which issue from our presses, will be rejected; and that the authors who obtain their livelihood through them, will have to learn something themselves, and acquire a proper way of communicating what they know to others.

We have been led or forced into this train of remark by looking through (we should blush to feel or own that we had read) the book, the title of which we give above. It is sent to us, as we suppose, that our opinion of it might be obtained. This we feel bound freely and plainly to express on every principle of courtesy and duty.

Dr. Johnson's mutton was, he said, as bad as bad could be. It was badly killed, badly dressed, badly cooked and badly served. -- Macauley says of some book that it is as bad as the mutton -- badly conceived, badly written and badly printed. But he never saw such a book as this. The man has undertaken, as we suppose, either to inform his reader -- or to amuse him by a description of the whims of a sick man -- or to touch his heart by placing before him some of the circumstances of disease and pain, which sooner or later must be ours in our pilgrimage through this weary world. To assure the reader that he is utterly unfit to accomplish either of these objects, or perhaps, to him that he had got to encounter a genius as inventive and original as to venture on a subject of which he is wholly ignorant, he prefixes to his book an advertisement ("preface to the second edition" it is called) which contains the following humorous avowal --

"The writer must plead guilty to some little disingenuousness, in assuming a part that does not belong to him. Had he really been the poor, miserable dog of an Invalid that personates, he never would have presumed to inflict his sentiments upon the Public. On the contrary, he is so fortunate in this regard, (and he speaks, he trusts, with becoming gratitude,) that the Bowl of an, Acorn would hold all the medicine, be it in the shape of Pill, Potion, or Powder, that has darkened the doors of his Stomach for the last five years."

But it is unfair to judge without a hearing. Let us give a sample of his "musings." -- On page 16, he muses thus --

"Better today -- I find it a relief to record my sensations, and to give my thoughts and whims an occasional airing -- yes, I am worth full ten such poor devils as I was yesterday, and almost begin to think I may yet live to be called venerable. How would a course of sparring lessons suit me? Rough sport for an invalid -- no, I have hardly physical capital enough for that line of business -- and yet there is something very fascinating about it -- so dignified, so heroic, too! I have a sneaking kind of admiration for prize-fighters -- I took, I fear, an inexcusable degree of interest in the great Hyer and Sullivan encounter."

The following morsel is intended, doubtless for an instance of the facile, natural pliant association, which is so charming in books designed to amuse readers -- a sample of the style of Sterne or Mackenzie.

"OH LORD -- I begin the day, as usual, with a grunt -- not the comfortable grunt, alas, which the hog gives, while discussing him plenteous meal of swill -- oh, no, no -- far different are my demonstrations -- no such good luck as that for me. -- Ought I to blush when I say that I often envy my four-footed brother his many privileges? His sound sleep, for instance -- his unfailing appetite, his princely digestion, his freedom from care, his exemption from all the servile labors of the toilet -- no boots pinch his toes -- no hat chafes his brow -- no coat cuts him to the quick -- his life is short, to he sure -- his death violent; his exit is a noisy undignified one, I admit -- but then it is soon over -- and after death, there is the consoling thought that he confers pleasure on the man that eats him -- while I enjoy nothing here, nor shall be enjoyed after I am gone. -- Oh, dear -- pretty language this, is it not, for a rational and accountable being -- a pretty proposition truly -- to exchange radiant, all-glorious manhood, for vile, abominable pighood! And yet, is there not, after all, full as much of the porcine as of of -sic- the seraphic about poor human nature?"

But we have not room to spare, for any further notice of such trash as this. The book is condemned. It is made up of -- not here and there a false or badly-conceived and badly expressed thought, serving as foils to genuine excellence -- but it is positively and literally made up of words without meaning, or unprecedented assemblages of ideas without wit, and of allusions to human suffering without pathos.

We conclude with this little extract, which, we freely acknowledge, bears the semblance of truth. "Another bright morning -- would that I were bright; but, no, I am as dull as a penny that has been in circulation half a century. I am disgusted with myself and life, and all that belongs to it. -- I am tired to death of this eternal round of little paltry nothings, that go to make up my existence."

The passage betrays a disposition to self-destruction. Suicide is a dreadful thing. -- Yet it has, at times, been justified. Cicero vindicates the conduct of Cato, "whom" he says, "it did not become to look on the face of the tyrant who had destroyed his country." It is a fair question -- especially when we consider the useful and noble purposes, which types, ink, paper and the labor of printers may be made to subserve -- whether the author of these "musings" would not do right, if he should carry out the threats implied in the last quotation, and put an end -- violently, if it should prove necessary -- to his literary life.

Southern Literary Messenger, Richmond, Virginia, March. -- This number of a beautiful and able monthly contains another chapter -- the sixth of a series -- on the History of Richmond. There is no purpose, which a periodical publication can be made to subserve so effectively as that of collecting such facts as form the contents of these articles. They are the rich materials of future histories; and as they are prepared by persons -- contemporaneous, or nearly so, with the events which they record, they are of incalculable value. To illustrate this, we shall be pardoned, if we make a few observations on the defects of nearly all historical compositions.

What is the actual condition of the Historic Art? Is it such as to warrant us in yielding to it the claim, which Bolingbroke in his celebrated Letters, asserts properly belongs to it? Is it indeed "Philosophy, teaching by example?"

It cannot be denied that some of the greatest geniuses, which the world has known, have been devoted to historical composition. As a work of art the mind of man has produced nothing finer than Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." In the conception of a truly grand subject, in the arrangement of vast and rich materials, in the decorations, and in the matchless propriety and dignity of the style, it probably surpasses all the productions of the human mind, except the great Epic poems. It lacks but one excellence; but it is an excellence, the absence of which converts this wonderful labor of a life into a curse to humanity. It lacks truth, and it has happened in cases, alas, how numerous, that the young and admiring reader of a work, in which he expected to find fairly recorded the most important period in the history of his race, rises from the study a sceptic in religion, a libertine in morals, and a scoffer at all that is great and holy.

We have selected Gibbon, merely for the sake of presenting a distinguished exemplification of the danger we are to guard against when we go to history for instruction. -- There is some risk to be encountered by the young student in all the great historical compositions. This arises from the nature of the object which the authors have had in view. He should bear in mind that these authors have, generally, been men of genius. Men of genius are always in search of broad, comprehensive principles. In physical science, such principles are easily attainable. -- The physical enquirer, following the leading of nature, collects his facts, separates from them all encumbrances of individual or specific peculiarity, and, fixing his attention on such qualities only as belong alike to all, arrives at a general law, which he contemplates with unmingled satisfaction, and announces with unfaltering confidence. The historian claims to be a man of science as well as the physical philosopher. But where are the facts from which he hopes to deduce a lesson, satisfactory to himself and infallible as a guide to the Statesman? They are scattered along through a series of ages, and over the surface of a wide empire; and what renders them still more difficult of analysis than even those spaces of time and distance is, that they are endlessly varied and modified by a multitude of circumstances of which the historian cannot estimate the nature or importance. When, therefore, he enters on the work of generalization, he finds that the vast number and infinite diversity of his materials forbids any such attempt with a prospect of success. In despair he abandons the idea of a philosophical history. Still as a man of genius, he discovers much in incident and more in character which as picturesque, and adapted to captivate a mind which is able to appreciate whatever is grand in intellect, virtue or achievement. The plan of furnishing to the scientific politician or to the students of human nature, principles analagous to the doctrines of chemistry or of physical astronomy is abandoned as hopeless, and the history becomes a series of splendid descriptions of battles and political intrigues, or of portraits of illustrious men.

We are speaking of history as it appears in its finest specimens -- of works of which the author is equally a man of genius and a lover of truth. But when, as is unhappily the case with almost every distinguished historical writer, he is the advocate or the victim of a peculiar political, ethical, or religious system, his works with all their elaborate and brilliant merits, become the vehicles of most injurious influences on the minds of students. No union can be more dangerous than that of scepticism and prejudice. Yet the uncertainty of the facts with which history has to do is sure to produce the former, while the latter is very likely to result from the education and social circumstances of historical writers.

Do historical works justify their observations? We will glance at a few of them, and they shall be selected from the highest class. What are the nine Books of Herodotus but a series of interesting fictions, or at best, myths? Thucydides is a great painter and his pictures of war and other national calamities are terribly graphic and impressive. But his representations of Grecian character, and especially of Athenian politics, are considered to be greatly blemished by narrow and surly prejudices. Livy ranks no higher than Herodotus as a teacher of truth, and Tacitus is more gloomy and unconfiding in Providence and man than Thucydides. Of Gibbon, we have already expressed a general opinion. He is the most able, brilliant, unfaithful and dangerous of all writers on facts -- the Lucifer of History. -- Humes's beautiful diction flows along like a river. But two subjects can disturb his cold, unearnest, unbelieving soul, one of them national, the other religious. He never tires of lauding the Stuarts, or ridiculing Quakers. Four great men have written histories of the English Revolution of 1688, Fox, Macintosh, Lord Mahon and Macauley. Yet how different are their representations of the same events and the characters. If two persons should read, one the history of Macauley, and the other that of Mahon, and should enter upon a discussion of the characters of Godolphin and Walpole -- so different are the materials furnished by the two authors, that they would hardly suppose themselves to be talking of the same men. Guizot, who has been styled by eminence the philosopher of history, is a sceptic. His works betray none of that hopefulness and positive teaching, which can result only from a conviction that the experience of past ages is to be depended on as the index of those which are to come. Michelet is possessed of great abilities, but is so irreverent to truth and so wedded to theories, that he declares all history fictitious which does not square with his own political or deistical system. Macauley, the fine critic, but superficial historian, who plays with the great facts of time as a boy plays with fire-balls, producing a great flash, yet no useful, but sometimes, dangerous results, is a scoffer at human nature, and will, we apprehend, be regarded by a generation of readers not very distant as a fascinating but egregious liar. We will mention but two other -- the celebrated historians of the north of Europe, Niebuhr and Neandor. -- The former is avowedly a rationalist; and, therefore, looks on the historic art as a medium for the display of such a series of events as seem to accord with his views of what is reasonable. His opinions are of course the standard of historic truth. Of Neander no man should think or speak but with reverence and love. With his genius and learning were united a blameless purity of heart and life. But his great soul could only be satisfied with that which was susceptible of being reduced to a harmonious system. He could not look on the events which are taking place in the world as the manifestation of the ever-watchful, and particular, and therefore, ever-varying, Providence of GOD, but was ever in search of some connecting bond which tied together all human occurrences in an unbroken series -- extending towards, illustrating and terminating in the sovereignty of Christ. In Ecclesiastical History he has endeavored to construct a system analogous to what is attempted with such ingenuity and splendor by Humboldt, in his Kosmos or general view of the physical universe. He has hoped to find a universal harmony, where no such harmony exists; and to gratify his love of order by efforts to arrange and classify phenomena, which the Bible assures us are nothing else than the movements of that all-seeing and all-loving Providence to promote the real, permanent, eternal welfare of each individual human being.

If such defects belong essentially to history, wherein is it of any value? -- To this question we answer substantially as Macauley has done in one of his reviews -- we cannot recall which of them. History is useful in breaking up the influence of those associations with our country, government, and social or local circumstances which are the sources of numerous unhappy prejudices. -- We are taught by learning the condition of man far distant from ourselves in time and place, to dismiss our narrow and groundless partialities, to enlarge the field of our sympathies, and to substitute for prejudices with regard to character, manners and government, that candid and comprehensive habit of mind which sees and owns merit wherever it is to be found, and is not blind to faults even if they exist in our own persons, neighborhood or country. And, more than this; though we cannot refuse a general assent to Coleridge's remark, that "the lights of experience are to most men like the stern lights of a ship, throwing their radiance backward only, but bearing no illumination on the forward path," yet there are some lessons taught by history, which cannot be disregarded. If it were not for the examples of great virtue which the historian places before us, the world would sink to ruin from the want of a high yet attainable standard of excellence. And a most solemn instruction is forced upon us by the records of national crime and disaster -- of which it is not too much to say, that they are like those famous battle-fields, on which the triumphs of justice have been won, and permanent peace and prosperity have been the result -- though the field itself exhibits nothing but the traces of death and desolation.

Godey's Lady's Book. -- Philadelphia,-- April, 1852. -- This number, with its variety for the entertainment of its readers, contains an able and finely illustrated article on the genius and labors of James Watt, the inventor of the steam-engine. There is at the beginning of the number a fine plate, representing the philosopher, not far advanced into boyhood, gazing with a look, which belongs exclusively to genius, at those demonstrations of the tea-kettle, in which he detected a power whose influence on the interests of humanity cannot be estimated.

Graham's Magazine, Philadelphia, April, 1852 -- This splendid monthly is so rich in what is useful, beautiful, and good, that we have not space to give to it any thing like on adequate notice. We cannot however refrain from directing the particular attention of the reader to another interesting article by Mr. Milnor, on Optical Phenomena. -- The text is illustrated by several engravings of these most beautiful and bright of the Sportings of Nature.

These and all our exchanges, for the titles of which even we have not space left, will accept our thanks for their kindness and our congratulations for their success.

We have only room to acknowledge the receipt of "Religion in its Relation to the present Life." By A. B. Johnson, Esq., of Utica. We thank the author for the volume and will notice it in our next.

Our thanks are due Mr. Perkins, for copies of illustrated papers, &c.