The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858

A brave deed performed, a noble object accomplished, gives a fillip to the spirits, an exhilaration to the feelings, like that imparted by Champagne, only more permanent. It is, indeed, admirably well said by one wise to discern the truth of things, and able to give to his thought a vigorous expression, that "a man feels relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace."

APPLAUSE

Noble acts deserve a generous appreciation. Indeed, it is a species of injustice not to warmly applaud whatever is wisely said or ably done. Fine things are shown that they may be admired. When the peacock struts about, it is to show what a fine tail he has.

ARTISTS

The artist's business is with the beautiful. The repugnant is outside of his province. Let him study only the beautiful, and he will always be pleased; let him treat only of the beautiful, with a true feeling for it, and he will always give pleasure.

The artist must love both his art and the subjects of his art. Nothing that is not lovable is worth portraying. In the portrait of Rosa Bonheur, she is appropriately represented with one arm thrown affectionately around the neck of a bull. She must have loved this order of animals, to have painted them so well.

AUTHORS

Instead of the jealousies that obtain among them, there is no class that ought to stand so close together, united in a feeling of common brotherhood, to strengthen, to support, and to encourage, by mutual sympathy and interchange of genial criticism, as authors. A sensitive race, neglect pierces like sharp steel into the very marrow of their being. And still they stand apart! Alive to praise, and needing its inspiration, their relations are those of icebergs,—cold, stiff, lofty, and freezing. What infatuation is this! They should seek each other out, extend the hand of fellowship, and bridge the distance between them by elaborate courtesies and kindly recognitions.

AN AUTHOR'S FIRST BOOK

No man is a competent judge of what he himself does. An author, on the eve of his first publication, and while his book is going through the press, is in a predicament like that of a man mounted on a fence, with an ugly bull in the field that he is obliged to cross. The apprehended silence of the journals concerning his merits—for no notice is the worst notice—constitutes one of the "horns of his dilemma"; while their possibly invidious comments upon his want of them constitute another and equally formidable "horn." Between these, and the uncertainty as to whether he will not in a little time be cut by one-half of his acquaintances and only indulgently tolerated by the other half, his experience is apt to be very peculiar, and certainly not altogether agreeable. Never, therefore, envy an author his feelings on such an occasion, on the score of their superior enjoyment, but rather let him be visited with your softest pity and tenderest commiseration.

BOOKS

A book is only a very partial expression of its author. The writer is greater than his work; and there is in him the substance, not of one, or a few, but of many books, were they only written out.

CAUSE AND EFFECT

Small circumstances illustrate great principles. To-day my dinner cost me sixpence less than usual. This is an incident not quite so important as some others recorded in history, but the causes of it originated more than two thousand years ago. It will also serve to explain the principle, that causes are primary and secondary, remote and immediate,—and that historians, when they speak of certain effects as produced by certain causes. Socrates one day had a conversation with Aristippus, in which he threw out certain remarks on the subject of temperance. Being overheard by Xenophon, they were subsequently committed to writing and published by him. These, falling in my way last evening, made such an impression on my mind, that I was induced to-day to forego my customary piece of pudding after dinner, to the loss of the eating-house proprietor, whose receipts were thus diminished, first, by a few observations of an ancient Greek, secondly, by a report given of them by a bystander, and, thirdly, by the accidental perusal of them, after twenty centuries, by one of his customers.

CHEERFULNESS

Sullen and good, morbid and wise, are impossible conditions. The best test, both of a man's wisdom and goodness, is his cheerfulness. When one is not cheerful, he is almost invariably stupid. A sad face seldom gets into much credit with the world, and rarely deserves to. "Sorrow," says old Montaigne, "is a base passion."

"The quarrel between Gray and me," said Horace Walpole, "arose from his being too serious a companion." In my opinion, this was a good ground for cutting the connection. What right has any one to be "too serious a companion?"

COWARDS

In desperate straits the fears of the timid aggravate the dangers that imperil the brave. For cowards the road of desertion to the enemy should be left open; they will carry over to them nothing but their fears. The poltroon, like the scabbard, is an incumbrance when once the sword is drawn.

CRITICISM

No work deserves to be criticized which has not much in it that deserves to be applauded. The legitimate aim of criticism is to direct attention to what is excellent The bad will dig its own grave, and the imperfect may be safely left to that final neglect from which no amount of present undeserved popularity can rescue it.

Ever so critical of things: never but good-naturedly so of persons.

CULTURE

Partial culture runs to the ornate; extreme culture to simplicity.

DEATH

Without death in the world, existence in it would soon become, through over-population, the most frightful of curses. To death we owe our life; the passing of one generation clears the way for another; and thus, in the economy of Providence, the very extinction of being is a provision for extending the boon of existence. Even wars and disease are a good misunderstood. Without them, child-murder would be as common in Christendom as it is in over-populated China.

DEBTORS AND CREDITORS

To interest a number of people in your welfare, get in debt to them. If they will not then promote your interest, it is because they are not alive to their own. It is to the advantage of creditors to aid their debtors. Cæsar owed more than a million of dollars before he obtained his first public employment, and at a later period his liabilities exceeded his assets by ten millions. His creditors constituted an important constituency, and doubtless aided to secure his elections.

DIFFICULTIES

Great difficulties, when not succumbed to, bring out great virtues.

DISGUST

A fit of disgust is a great stimulator of thought. Pleasure represses it.

EARNESTNESS

M. de Buffon says that "genius is only great patience." Would it not be truer to say that genius is great earnestness? Patience is only one faculty; earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties: it is the cause of patience; it gives endurance, overcomes pain, strengthens weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties, and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them. Yes, War yields its victories, and Beauty her favors, to him who fights or wooes with the most passionate ardor,—in other words, with the greatest earnestness. Even the simulation of earnestness accomplishes much,—such a charm has it for us. This explains the success of libertines, the coarseness of whose natures is usually only disguised by a certain conventional polish of manners: "their hearts seem in earnest, because their passions are."

EDUCATION OF THE SEXES

Girls are early taught deceit, and they never forget the lesson. Boys are more outspoken. This is because boys are instructed that to be frank and open is to be manly and generous, while their sisters are perpetually admonished that "this is not pretty," or "that is not becoming," until they have learned to control their natural impulses, and to regulate their conduct by precepts and example. The result of all this is, that, while men retain much of their natural dispositions, women have largely made-up characters.

EMERSON'S ESSAYS

I have not yet been able to decide whether it is better to read certain of Emerson's essays as poetry or philosophy. Perhaps, though, it would be no more than just to consider them as an almost complete and perfect union of the two. Certainly, no modern writer has more of vivid individuality, both of thought and expression,—and few writers, of any age, will better bear reperusal, or surpass him in the grand merit of suggestiveness. There is much in his books that I cannot clearly understand, and passages sometimes occur that once seemed to me destitute of meaning; but I have since learned, from a greater familiarity with what he has written, to respect even his obscurities, and to have faith that there is at all times behind his words both a man and a meaning.

ENGLISHMEN

There is in the character of perhaps a majority of Englishmen a singular commingling of the haughty and the subservient,—the result, doubtless, of the mixed nature, partly aristocratic and partly democratic, of the government, and of the peculiar structure of English society, in which every man indemnifies himself for the subserviency he is required to exhibit to the classes above, by exacting a similar subserviency from those below him. Thackeray, who is to be considered a competent judge of the character of his countrymen, puts the remark into the mouth of one of his characters, that, "if you wish to make an Englishman respect you, you must treat him with insolence." The language is somewhat too strong, and it would not be altogether safe to act upon the suggestion; but the witticism embodies a modicum of truth, for all that.

EXAMPLE

Example has more followers than reason.

EXCITEMENT COUNTERVAILS PAIN

We wince under little pains, but Nature in us, through the excitement attendant upon them, seems to brace us to endure with fortitude greater agonies. A curious circumstance, that will serve as an illustration of this, is told by an eminent surgeon of a person upon whom it became necessary to perform a painful surgical operation. The surgeon, after adjusting him in a position favorable to his purpose, turned for a moment to write a prescription; then, taking up the knife, he was about making an "imminent deadly breach" in the body of his subject, when he observed an expression of distress upon his countenance. Wishing to reassure him, "What disturbs you?" he inquired. "Oh," said the sufferer, "you have left the pen in the inkstand!" and this being removed, he submitted to the operation with extraordinary composure.

FACT AND FANCY

"See, nurse I see!" exclaimed a delighted papa, as something like a smile irradiated the face of his infant child,—"an angel is whispering to it!" "No, Sir," replied the more matter-of-fact nurse,—"it is only wind from its stomach."

FINE HOUSES

To build a huge house, and furnish it lavishly,—what is this but to play baby-house on a large scale?

FINE LADIES

If you would know how many of the "airs" of a fine lady are "put on," contrast her with a woman who has never had the advantages of a genteel training. What appear as the curvettings and prancings of a high-mettled nature turn out, from the light thus afforded, to be only the tricks of a skilful grooming.