Gifts of Genius Part 20

"Such shrines as these are pilgrim shrines-- Shrines to no code or creed confined; The Delphian vales, the Palestines, The Meccas of the mind."

HALLECK.

The date is September 5, 1857. I am at Haworth, whither I had walked from the Bradford Station, some ten or twelve miles distant. This Haworth--a place but a few years since quite unknown to any but the few residing in its immediate vicinity--is built upon the side of a hill, and, with its long line of grey houses creeping up the slope, seems like a huge saurian monster, sprawling along the hill-side, his head near the top and his tail reaching nearly to the vale below. At the summit, in the very head of our saurian, stands Haworth Parsonage, and the church near by, with the square old tower rising above the houses that cl.u.s.ter about it. I well remember my first view of this place. It was an autumn afternoon, and near sunset.

The sky had been cloudy, but as I stopped to take my first long look at the little village, so hallowed by the memory of the Bronte sisters, the declining sun sent through a breach in the clouds a few spears of dazzling light, that played about the old church and parsonage with an ineffable glory. It lasted but a few moments, the sun went down, and darkness and night gradually settled over the scene. The little incident seemed almost like a type of the life of the gifted woman chiefly to whom Haworth owes its fame; for her life, like this very day, had been dark and wearisome, overshadowed by clouds of cares, tears falling like rain-drops upon new-made graves, until near its close, when there came a sweet season of bright domestic happiness, that lasted too shortly, and then gave place to the darkness and night of death.

Strolling through the village, after my quiet meal at the Black Bull Inn, which poor Branwell Bronte had so often frequented, I stopped to make some trifling purchases at a stationery store, and casually asked the proprietor--a small, delicate-looking man, with a bright eye and a highly intellectual countenance--if he remembered the Bronte sisters. It was a fortunate question, for he knew them well, and was a personal friend of the auth.o.r.ess of Jane Eyre, to whose handsomely-framed portrait he proudly pointed. He had provided her, as he said, with joyful delight, with the paper on which she wrote the ma.n.u.scripts of most of her novels; he is referred to in one of Miss Bronte's letters to Mrs. Gaskell, as her "one friend in Haworth," and is the "working-man" mentioned in her memoirs, who wrote a little _critique_ on Jane Eyre, that came to the notice of the auth.o.r.ess and afforded her great pleasure. To talk of the Bronte girls--to express his admiration of them to one who had come from America to visit their home and grave, was to him a great gratification.

He told me how he used to meet them on the moors--how they were accustomed to stroll all three together, and talk and gather flowers; then how Emily died, and Anne and Charlotte were left to pace the familiar path arm-in-arm; then how they took Anne away to the sea-side, whence she never returned, while Charlotte would take her lonely moorland walk, rapt in sad contemplation. Sometimes he would meet her on these occasions, and if he pa.s.sed by without attracting her attention, she would chide him when told of it afterward. She was always so kind, so good-hearted, and with those she knew, so really sociable.

Sunday, with my new friend, I attended the church. The storm of the day before had cleared away, and even the place of graves looked bright and cheerful. The churchyard was crowded with country people from miles around, who sat carelessly on the long, flat stones that so thickly covered the ground, waiting for the opening services, while the parish bell kept up a merry peal. Everything seemed simple and happy, and I do not wonder that the Brontes loved their home, with its little garden of lilac bushes, the old church in front, and the sweeping moors stretching far behind. On many a Sunday morning like this they had trodden the very path I then was treading, and had entered the church-door; but how few of these simple villagers knew the treasures of genius showered on these quiet, reserved sisters!

The church inside is old, and quaint, and simple; it can neither be called elegant, comfortable, s.p.a.cious nor antique. Old Mr. Bronte was to preach, and the Rev. Mr. Nicholls read the service. As a compliment to a stranger, I had been invited by the organist of the church to play the organ--a neat little instrument of some eight or ten stops; and it was while "giving out" the familiar tune of Antioch that I noticed, in the reflection of a little mirror placed above the keyboard, that Mr. Bronte had entered the church, and was pa.s.sing up the aisle. He wore the customary black gown, and the lower part of his face was quite buried in an enormous white neckcloth--the most monstrous article of the kind I had ever beheld. The reflection in that little mirror I shall never forget. The old man, walking feebly up the aisle, shading his eyes with his right hand, and supporting himself with a cane, the quiet congregation, and the singular dress and venerable bald head of the old preacher, all formed a character-picture, that is not often seen. His sermon was extempore, and consisted of a series of running paraphrases and simple and touching explanations upon a few verses selected from the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

* * * * *

After church, my friend the stationer walked with me on the moors.

Charlotte Bronte's experience of the world was so very limited, that in drawing the characters in her novels, she had to select the real, living people in the vicinity. Thus, my friend pointed out one house and another to me as being the residence of many of the originals of many of the characters in her works, especially in "Shirley." Soon, however, our path across the moors took us out of human habitations, and among the moorland solitudes the Bronte sisters so fondly loved. Cold and desolate as they appear from a distance, a nearer examination proves them to be replete with exquisite beauty. Delicate heather-blooms carpet the immense slope, and bend like nodding plumes, in graceful waves, to the breezes that play heedlessly down the hill-side. Gay yellow b.u.t.tercups, bright purple heath-flowers, and dark bilberries, vary the general violet tint, while the tiny stems of these gentle plants spring from rich tufts of emerald moss, and are pushed aside by the spray-like leaves of the wild fern. The hum of bees imparts a half busy, half drowsy sound to the scene, while far down the long easy slopes are little valleys, through which trickle talkative brooks, that sometimes peep between the low foliage on their margins, and are the next moment lost to sight behind the crowding bushes.

It is no wonder that Charlotte and her sisters loved their quiet walks along the moors.

The next day I bade farewell to Haworth. It is now frequently included in the route of American tourists, by many of whom the memory of Charlotte Bronte is as fondly cherished as by her own countrymen and women; and Haworth is no longer the quiet, unknown Yorkshire hamlet that it was a few years ago.

THORWALDSEN'S CHRIST.

BY THE REV. E.A. WASHBURN.

Silent stood the youthful sculptor Gazing on the breathing stone From the chaos of the marble Into G.o.dlike being grown.

But a gloom was on his forehead, In his eye a drooping glance, And at length the heavy sorrow From the lip found utterance:

"Holy Art! thy shapes of beauty Have I carved, but ne'er before Reached my thought a faultless image, Still unbodied would it soar; Still the pure unfound Ideal Would ensoul a fairer shrine; In my victory I perish, And no loftier aim is mine."

n.o.ble artist! thine the yearning, Thine the great inspiring word, By the sleepless mind forever In its silent watches heard; For the earthly it is pleasure Only earthly ends to gain; For the seeker of the perfect, To be satisfied is pain.

Visions of an untold glory Milton saw in his eclipse, Paradise to outward gazers Lost, with no apocalypse; Holier Christ and veiled Madonnas, Painted were on Raphael's soul; Melodies he could not utter O'er Bethoven's ear would roll.

Ever floats the dim Ideal Far before the longing eyes; Ever, as we travel onward, Boundless the horizon flies; Not the br.i.m.m.i.n.g cups of wisdom Can the thirsty spirit slake, And the molten gold in pouring Will the mould in pieces break.

Voice within our inmost being, Calling deep to answering deep, Midst the life of weary labor Thou shalt waken us from sleep!

All our joy is in our Future And our motion is our rest, Still the True reveals the Truer, Still the good foretells the Best.

JUNE TWENTY-NINTH, EIGHTEEN FIFTY-NINE.

BY CAROLINE M. KIRKLAND.

To talk about the weather is the natural English and American mode of beginning an acquaintance.

This day--the one that glares upon us at our present writing--is eminently able to melt away what is called the frost of ceremony, and to induce the primmest of us to throw off all disguises that can possibly be dispensed with. It is a day to bring the most sophisticated back to first principles. The very thought of wrapping anything up in mystery, to-day, brings a thrill like the involuntary protest of the soul against cruelty.

We are not even as anxious as usual to cover up our faults. We hesitate at enveloping a letter.

The shimmer that lives and moves over yonder dry fallow, as if ten thousand million fairies were fanning themselves with midges' wings, fatigues the eye with a notion of unnecessary exertion. Wiser seems yon gla.s.sy pool, moveless, under heavy, not melancholy, boughs. That is reflecting--keeping one pleasant thought all the time--satisfying itself with one picture for a whole morning, as we all did while the "Heart of the Andes" was laid open to our longing gaze. The pool has the advantage of us, too; for it receives into its waveless bosom the loveliness of sky and tree without emotion, while we, gazing on the wondrous transcript made by mortal man of these measureless glories, felt our souls stirred, even to pain, with a sense of the artist's power, and of the amount of his precious life that must have gone into such a creation.

By the way, if we had energy enough to-day to wish anything, it would be to find ourselves far away amid flashing seas and wild winds, hunting icebergs, with Church for our Columbus, his banner of _Excelsior_ streaming over us, his wondrous eye piercing the distant wreaths of spray, in search of domes and pinnacles of opal and lapis lazuli, turned, now to diamonds, now to marble, by sun and shade. One whose good fortune it was to be with the young discoverer at Niagara, came away with the feeling of having acquired a new sense, by the potent magic of genius.

But to-day, Art is nothing--genius is nothing--but no! that is blasphemous. It is we that are nothing--if not stupid. Dullness is the universe. The gra.s.shoppers are too faint to sing, the birds sit still on the boughs, waiting for the leaves to fan them. Children are wilted into silence and slumberous nonent.i.ty; boys do not bathe to-day--they welter, hour after hour, in the dark water near the shaded rock. Even they and the tadpoles can hardly be seen to wriggle. The cow has found a shade, and, preferring repose to munching, lies contented under the one great elm mercifully left in the middle of her pasture.

A hot day in June is hotter than any other hot day. It finds us cruelly unguarded. After we have been gently baked awhile, the crust thus acquired makes us somewhat tortoise-like and quiescent. If we were condemned to suffer thirty-nine stripes, or even only as many as belong to our flag, would it or would it not be a privilege to take them by degrees, say one on the first day, two on the second, four on the third, etc., in the celebrated progression style, until the whole were accomplished? Or were it better to have the whole at once, and so be done with it? In either case, or in present case, what a blessing to be made pachydermatous! (a learned word lately acquired by ladies, though doubtless long familiar to lords).

But words beginning with the sound of _ice_, are more agreeable for to-day--such as icicle, isolation, Islip.

Some unhappy critic has said that the "icicle that hangs on Diana's temple" is not colder than other icicles. We pity him, and would like to try the comparison to-day. We have already tried "thinking on the frosty Caucasus," and quite agree with Claudio--was it, or Romeo, or who?--that this is of no service in case of fire.

Delicious music for to-day--the tinkling of ice in the pitcher, as Susan, slowly and carefully, brings up-stairs the water we wait for. It were really a loss to have the way shorter, or the servant a harum-scarum thing who would dash in with her precious burden before one knew it was coming.

We might try, to-day, the latest novelty in cookery, a ball of solid ice wrapped in puff-paste, and baked so adroitly that the paste shall be brown while the ice remains unmelted.

Akin to this, is an antique achievement culinary, as old as Mrs. Gla.s.se, at least--the roasting of a pound of b.u.t.ter, an operation not unlike the very work we are engaged in at this moment--indeed so like it, that the remembrance has occurred several times. Your pound of b.u.t.ter is to be thoroughly crusted in bread-crumbs to begin with, and then put upon the spit and turned before a very hot fire; the unhappy cook standing by to dredge on crumbs continually, to prevent the slippery article from running away. When the crumbs (and cook) are quite roasted, the thing is done.

And so should we be, but that here comes a thunder storm, fit conclusion for an intense day, and very like the sudden and terrific blowings up which terminate the most ferocious kind of friendships. Thick clouds, shaped like piles of cannon b.a.l.l.s, have slowly peered up from behind the horizon, and rolled themselves. .h.i.ther and thither, spreading and gathering as they went. Now and then a thunder-whisper is heard, so faint, that if we were conversing, we should not notice it; and an occasional flash of lightning seems, in the sun's glare, like the waving of a curtain by the fitful breeze that begins to touch the pool here and there. The cloud ma.s.ses gather fresh and fresh accession as they move on, like revolutionary armies marching up to battle. Looking overhead, there seems a field-day in heaven; great bodies of artillery in motion, forming themselves into solid phalanx, and giving more and more dreadful notes of preparation. Volleys tell when divisions join, and the light that announces them is as if the adamantine arch were riven, disclosing dread splendors unspeakable Most grand, most beautiful storm! New music--that of the delicious rain, and in such abundance that it washes away the very memory of the parched and burning day. No wild commotion, no terror!

Sublime order and an awe which is like peace. One more proof of the unfailing, tender love of our heavenly Father.

NO SONGS IN WINTER.

BY T. B. ALDRICH.

I

The robin and the oriole, The linnet and the wren-- When shall I see their fairyships, And hear their songs again?

II.

The wind among the poplar trees, At midnight, makes its moan; The slim red cardinal flowers are dead, And all sweet things are flown!

III.