International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1

In person he was below the middle height, slenderly but compactly formed, and in his better moments he had in an eminent degree that air of gentlemanliness which men of a lower order seldom succeed in acquiring.

His conversation was at times almost supramortal in its eloquence. His voice was modulated with astonishing skill, and his large and variably expressive eyes looked repose or shot fiery tumult into theirs who listened, while his own face glowed, or was changeless in pallor, as his imagination quickened his blood or drew it back frozen to his heart. His imagery was from the worlds which no mortals can see but with the vision of genius. Suddenly starting from a proposition, exactly and sharply defined, in terms of utmost simplicity and clearness, he rejected the forms of customary logic, and by a crystalline process of accretion, built up his ocular demonstrations in forms of gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur, or in those of the most airy and delicious beauty—so minutely and distinctly, yet so rapidly, that the attention which was yielded to him was chained till it stood among his wonderful creations—till he himself dissolved the spell, and brought his hearers back to common and base existence, by vulgar fancies or exhibitions of the ignoblest passion.

He was at all times a dreamer—dwelling in ideal realms—in heaven or hell—peopled with the creatures and the accidents of his brain. He walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayer, (never for himself, for he felt, or professed to feel, that he was already damned, but) for their happiness who at the moment were objects of his idolatry;—or, with his glances introverted to a heart gnawed with anguish, and with a face shrouded in gloom, he would brave the wildest storms; and all night, with drenched garments and arms beating the winds and rains, would speak as if to spirits that at such times only could be evoked by him from the Aidenn, close by whose portals his disturbed soul sought to forget the ills to which his constitution subjected him—close by the Aidenn which were those he loved—the Aidenn which he might never see, but in fitful glimpses, as its gates opened to receive the less fiery and more happy natures whose destiny to sin did not involve the doom of death. He seemed, except when some fitful pursuit subjugated his will and engrossed his faculties, always to bear the memory of some controlling sorrow. The remarkable poem of "The Raven" was probably much more nearly than has been supposed, even by those who were very intimate with him, a reflection and an echo of his own history. He was that bird's

"–unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden
bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never—never more.'"

Every genuine author, in a greater or less degree, leaves in his works, whatever their design, traces of his personal character; elements of his immortal being, in which the individual survives the person. While we read the pages of the "Fall of the House of Usher," or of "Mesmeric Revelations," we see in the solemn and stately gloom which invests one, and in the subtle metaphysical analysis of both, indications of the idiosyncracies—of what was most remarkable and peculiar—in the author's intellectual nature. But we see here only the better phases of his nature, only the symbols of his juster action, for his harsh experience had deprived him of all faith, in man or woman. He had made up his mind upon the numberless complexities of the social world, and the whole system with him was an imposture. This conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character. Still, though he regarded society as composed altogether of villains, the sharpness of his intellect was not of that kind which enabled him to cope with villany, while it continually caused him by overshots to fail of the success of honesty. He was in many respects like Francis Vivian, in Bulwer's novel of "The Caxtons." Passion, in him, comprehended many of the worst emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural advantages of this poor boy—his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere—had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into prejudices against him. Irascible, envious—bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with a cold repellant cynicism, his passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed to him no moral susceptibility; and, what was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing of the true point of honor. He had, to a morbid excess, that desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no wish for the esteem or the love of his species; only the hard wish to succeed—not shine, not serve—succeed, that he might have the right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit.

* * * * *

"LAUGH AND GET FAT!"

BY JOHN KENYON

Lack we motives to laugh? Are not all things, anything, everything, to be laughed at? And if nothing were to be seen, felt, heard, or understood, we would laugh at it too! Merry Beggars.

  I

There's nothing here on earth deserves
Half of the thought we waste about it,
And thinking but destroys the nerves,
When we could do so well without it:
If folks would let the world go round,
And pay their tithes, and eat their dinners,
Such doleful looks would not be found,
To frighten us poor laughing sinners.
Never sigh when you can sing,
But laugh, like me, at everything!

II

One plagues himself about the sun,
And puzzles on, through every weather,
What time he'll rise,—how long he'll run,—
And when he'll leave us altogether;
Now matters it a pebble-stone,
Whether he shines at six or seven?
If they don't leave the sun alone,
At last they'll plague him out of heaven!
Never sigh when you can sing
But laugh, like me, at everything!

III

Another spins from out his brains
Fine cobweb, to amuse his neighbors,
And gets, for all his toils and pains,
Reviewed, and laughed at for his labors:
Fame is his star! and fame is sweet;
And praise is pleasanter than honey,—
I write at just so much a sheet,
And Messrs Longman pay the money!
Never sigh when you can sing,
But laugh, like me, at everything!

IV

My brother gave his heart away
To Mercandests[*illegible], when he met her,
She married Mr. Ball one day—
He's gone to Sweden to forget her
I had a charmer, too—and sighed,
And raved all day and night about her;
She caught a cold, poor thing! and died,
And I—am just as fat without her
Never sigh when you can sing,
But laugh, like me, at everything!

V

For tears are vastly pretty things,
But make one very thin and taper;
And sighs are music's sweetest strings,
But sound most beautiful—on paper!
"Thought" is the Sage's brightest star,
Her gems alone are worth his finding;
But as I'm not particular,
Please God! I'll keep on "never minding."
Never sigh when you can sing,
But laugh, like me, at everything!

VI

Oh! in this troubled world of ours,
A laughter-mine's a glorious treasure;
And separating thorns from flowers,
Is half a pain and half a pleasure:
And why be grave instead of gay?
Why feel a-thirst while folks are quaffing?—
Oh! trust me, whatsoe'er they say,
There's nothing half so good as laughing!
Never sigh when you can sing,
But laugh, like me, at everything!