Poems of James Russell Lowell Part 61

[It was said of old time, that riches have wings; and, though this be not applicable in a literal strictness to the wealth of our patriarchal brethren of the South, yet it is clear that their possessions have legs, and an unaccountable propensity for using them in a northerly direction. I marvel that the grand jury of Washington did not find a true bill against the North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and Sayres. It would have been quite of a piece with the intelligence displayed by the South on other questions connected with slavery. I think that no ship of state was ever freighted with a more veritable Jonah than this same domestic inst.i.tution of ours. Mephistopheles himself could not feign so bitterly, so satirically sad a sight as this of three millions of human beings crushed beyond help or hope by this one mighty argument,--_Our fathers knew no better!_ Nevertheless, it is the unavoidable destiny of Jonahs to be cast overboard sooner or later. Or shall we try the experiment of hiding our Jonah in a safe place, that none may lay hands on him to make jetsam of him? Let us, then, with equal forethought and wisdom, lash ourselves to the anchor, and await, in pious confidence, the certain result.

Perhaps our suspicious pa.s.senger is no Jonah after all, being black. For it is well known that a superintending Providence made a kind of sandwich of Ham and his descendants, to be devoured by the Caucasian race.

In G.o.d's name, let all, who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of the storm and the growl of the breakers, speak out! But, alas! we have no right to interfere. If a man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in danger of the justice; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who says this? Our Const.i.tution, consecrated by the callous consuetude of sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument by the left hand of him whose right hand clutches the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable with the undethronable majesty of countless aeons, says,-- Speak ! The Past, wise with the sorrows and desolations of ages, from amid her shattered fanes and wolf-housing palaces, echoes,-- Speak ! Nature, through her thousand trumpets of freedom, her stars, her sunrises, her seas, her winds, her cataracts, her mountains blue with cloudy pines, blows jubilant encouragement, and cries,-- Speak! From the soul's trembling abysses the still, small voice not vaguely murmurs,-- Speak ! But, alas! the Const.i.tution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C., say,-- Be dumb !

It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of inquiry in this connection, whether, on that momentous occasion when the goats and the sheep shall be parted, the Const.i.tution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C., will be expected to take their places on the left as our hircine vicars.

_Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?

Quem patronum rogaturus?_

There is a point where toleration sinks into sheer baseness and poltroonery. The toleration of the worst leads us to look on what is barely better as good enough, and to worship what is only moderately good. Woe to that man, or that nation, to whom mediocrity has become an ideal!

Has our experiment of self-government succeeded, if it barely manage to _rub and go_? Here, now, is a piece of barbarism which Christ and the nineteenth century say shall cease, and which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and others say shall _not_ cease. I would by no means deny the eminent respectability of these gentlemen, but I confess, that, in such a wrestling-match, I cannot help having my fears for them.

_Discite just.i.tiam, moniti, et non temnere divos._ H. W.]

No. VI.

THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED.

[At the special instance of Mr. Biglow, I preface the following satire with an extract from a sermon preached during the past summer, from Ezekiel x.x.xiv. 2:--"Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel." Since the Sabbath on which this discourse was delivered, the editor of the "Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss" has unaccountably absented himself from our house of worship.

"I know of no so responsible position as that of the public journalist. The editor of our day bears the same relation to his time that the clerk bore to the age before the invention of printing. Indeed, the position which he holds is that which the clergyman should hold even now. But the clergyman chooses to walk off to the extreme edge of the world, and to throw such seed as he has clear over into that darkness which he calls the Next Life. As if _next_ did not mean _nearest_, and as if any life were nearer than that immediately present one which boils and eddies all around him at the caucus, the ratification meeting, and the polls!

Who taught him to exhort men to prepare for eternity, as for some future era of which the present forms no integral part?

The furrow which Time is even now turning runs through the Everlasting, and in that must he plant, or nowhere. Yet he would fain believe and teach that we are _going_ to have more of eternity than we have now. This _going_ of his is like that of the auctioneer, on which _gone_ follows before we have made up our minds to bid,--in which manner, not three months back, I lost an excellent copy of Chappelow on Job. So it has come to pa.s.s that the preacher, instead of being a living force, has faded into an emblematic figure at christenings, weddings, and funerals. Or, if he exercise any other function, it is as keeper and feeder of certain theologic dogmas, which, when occasion offers, he unkennels with a _staboy_! 'to bark and bite as 'tis their nature to,'

whence that reproach of _odium theologic.u.m_ has arisen.

"Meanwhile, see what a pulpit the editor mounts daily, sometimes with a congregation of fifty thousand within reach of his voice, and never so much as a nodder, even, among them! And from what a Bible can he choose his text,--a Bible which needs no translation, and which no priestcraft can shut and clasp from the laity,--the open volume of the world, upon which, with a pen of sunshine or destroying fire, the inspired Present is even now writing the annals of G.o.d! Methinks the editor who should understand his calling, and be equal thereto, would truly deserve that t.i.tle of p???? ?a??, which Homer bestows upon princes. He would be the Moses of our nineteenth century; and whereas the old Sinai, silent now, is but a common mountain stared at by the elegant tourist and crawled over by the hammering geologist, he must find his tables of the new law here among factories and cities in this Wilderness of Sin (Numbers x.x.xiii. 12) called Progress of Civilization, and be the captain of our Exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order.

"Nevertheless, our editor will not come so far within even the shadow of Sinai as Mahomet did, but chooses rather to construe Moses by Joe Smith. He takes up the crook, not that the sheep may be fed, but that he may never want a warm woollen suit and a joint of mutton.

_Immemor, O, fidei, pecorumque oblite tuorum!_

For which reason I would derive the name _editor_ not so much from _edo_, to publish, as from _edo_, to eat, that being the peculiar profession to which he esteems himself called. He blows up the flames of political discord for no other occasion than that he may thereby handily boil his own pot. I believe there are two thousand of these mutton-loving shepherds in the United States, and of these, how many have even the dimmest perception of their immense power, and the duties consequent thereon? Here and there, haply, one. Nine hundred and ninety-nine labor to impress upon the people the great principles of _Tweedledum_, and other nine hundred and ninety-nine preach with equal earnestness the gospel according to _Tweedledee_."--H. W.]

I du believe in Freedom's cause, Ez fur away ez Payris is; I love to see her stick her claws In them infarnal Phayrisees; It's wal enough agin a king To dror resolves an' triggers,-- But libbaty's a kind o' thing Thet don't agree with n.i.g.g.e.rs.

I du believe the people want A tax on teas, an' coffees, Thet nothin' aint extravygunt,-- Purvidin' I'm in office; Fer I hev loved my country sence My eye-teeth filled their sockets, An' Uncle Sam I reverence, Partic'larly his pockets.

I du believe in _any_ plan O' levyin' the taxes, Ez long ez, like a lumberman, I git jest wut I axes: I go free-trade thru thick an' thin, Because it kind o' rouses The folks to vote,--an' keeps us in Our quiet custom-houses.

I du believe it's wise an' good To sen' out furrin missions, Thet is, on sartin understood An' orthydox conditions;-- I mean nine thousan' dolls. per ann., Nine thousan' more fer outfit, An' me to recommend a man The place 'ould jest about fit.

I du believe in special ways O' prayin' an' convartin'; The bread comes back in many days, An' b.u.t.tered, tu, fer sartin; I mean in prayin' till one busts On wut the party chooses, An' in convartin' public trusts To very privit uses.

I du believe hard coin the stuff Fer 'lectioneers to spout on; The people's ollers soft enough To make hard money out on; Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his, An' gives a good-sized junk to all,-- I don't care _how_ hard money is, Ez long ez mine's paid punctooal.

I du believe with all my soul In the gret Press's freedom, To pint the people to the goal An' in the traces lead 'em; Palsied the arm thet forges yokes At my fat contracts squintin', An' withered be the nose thet pokes Inter the gov'ment printin'!

I du believe thet I should give Wut's his'n unto Caesar, Fer it's by him I move an' live, Frum him my bread an' cheese air; I du believe thet all o' me Doth bear his superscription,-- Will, conscience, honor, honesty, An' things o' thet description.

I du believe in prayer an' praise To him that hez the grantin'

O' jobs,--in every thin' thet pays, But most of all in Cantin '; This doth my cup with marcies fill, This lays all thought o' sin to rest,-- I _don't_ believe in princerple, But O, I _du_ in interest.

I du believe in bein' this Or thet, ez it may happen One way or t' other hendiest is To ketch the people nappin'; It aint by princerples nor men My preudunt course is steadied,-- I scent which pays the best, an' then Go into it baldheaded.

I du believe thet holdin' slaves Comes nat'ral tu a Presidunt, Let 'lone the rowdedow it saves To hev a wal-broke precedunt; Fer any office, small or gret, I couldn't ax with no face, Without I'd ben, thru dry an' wet, Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface.

I du believe wutever trash 'll keep the people in blindness,-- Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash Right inter brotherly kindness, Thet bombsh.e.l.ls, grape, an' powder 'n' ball Air good-will's strongest magnets, Thet peace, to make it stick at all, Must be druv in with bagnets.

In short, I firmly du believe In Humbug generally, Fer it's a thing thet I perceive To hev a solid vally; This heth my faithful shepherd ben, In pasturs sweet heth led me, An' this 'll keep the people green To feed ez they hev fed me.

[I subjoin here another pa.s.sage from my before-mentioned discourse.

"Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it rightly, is the newspaper. To me, for example, sitting on the critical front bench of the pit, in my study here in Jaalam, the advent of my weekly journal is as that of a strolling theatre, or rather of a puppet-show, on whose stage, narrow as it is, the tragedy, comedy, and farce of life are played in little.

Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in a brown-paper wrapper!

"Hither, to my obscure corner, by wind or steam, on horseback or dromedary-back, in the pouch of the Indian runner, or clicking over the magnetic wires, troop all the famous performers from the four quarters of the globe.

Looked at from a point of criticism, tiny puppets they seem all, as the editor sets up his booth upon my desk and officiates as showman. Now I can truly see how little and transitory is life. The earth appears almost as a drop of vinegar, on which the solar microscope of the imagination must be brought to bear in order to make out anything distinctly. That animalcule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis Philippe, just landed on the coast of England. That other, in the gray surtout and c.o.c.ked hat, is Napoleon Bonaparte Smith, a.s.suring France that she need apprehend no interference from him in the present alarming juncture. At that spot, where you seem to see a speck of something in motion, is an immense ma.s.s-meeting. Look sharper and you will see a mite brandishing his mandibles in an excited manner. That is the great Mr. Soandso, defining his position amid tumultuous and irrepressible cheers. That infinitesimal creature, upon whom some score of others, as minute as he, are gazing in open-mouthed admiration, is a famous philosopher, expounding to a select audience their capacity for the infinite. That scarce discernible pufflet of smoke and dust is a revolution. That speck there is a reformer, just arranging the lever with which he is to move the world.

And lo, there creeps forward the shadow of a skeleton that blows one breath between its grinning teeth, and all our distinguished actors are whisked off the slippery stage into the dark Beyond.

"Yes, the little show-box has its solemner suggestions. Now and then we catch a glimpse of a grim old man, who lays down a scythe and hour-gla.s.s in the corner while he shifts the scenes. There, too, in the dim background, a weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he leans upon his mattock, and gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly married on their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe brought home from christening. Suddenly (for the scene grows larger and larger as we look) a bony hand s.n.a.t.c.hes back a performer in the midst of his part, and him, whom yesterday two infinites (past and future) would not suffice, a handful of dust is enough to cover and silence forever. Nay, we see the same fleshless fingers opening to clutch the showman himself, and guess, not without a shudder, that they are lying in wait for spectator also.

"Think of it: for three dollars a year I buy a season-ticket to this great Globe Theatre, for which G.o.d would write the dramas (only that we like farces, spectacles, and the tragedies of Apollyon better), whose scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is rung down by Death.

"Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes as I am tearing off the wrapper of my newspaper. Then suddenly that otherwise too often vacant sheet becomes invested for me with a strange kind of awe. Look! deaths and marriages, notices of inventions, discoveries, and books, lists of promotions, of killed, wounded, and missing, news of fires, accidents, of sudden wealth and as sudden poverty;--I hold in my hand the ends of myriad invisible electric conductors, along which tremble the joys, sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, hopes, and despairs of as many men and women everywhere. So that upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate me from mankind as a spectator of their puppet-pranks, another supervenes, in which I feel that I, too, unknown and unheard of, am yet of some import to my fellows. For, through my newspaper here, do not families take pains to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death among them? Are not here two who would have me know of their marriage? And, strangest of all, is not this singular person anxious to have me informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry Bruisgins? But to none of us does the President continue miraculous (even if for a moment discerned as such). We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this sheet, in which a vision was let down to me from Heaven, shall be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a beggar's broken victuals."--H. W.]

No. VII.

A LETTER

FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, ENCLOSED IN A NOTE FROM MR. BIGLOW TO S.

H. GAY, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-SLAVERY STANDARD.

[Curiosity may be said to be the quality which pre-eminently distinguishes and segregates man from the lower animals. As we trace the scale of animated nature downward, we find this faculty (as it may truly be called) of the mind diminished in the savage, and quite extinct in the brute. The first object which civilized man proposes to himself I take to be the finding out whatsoever he can concerning his neighbors.

_Nihil humanum a me alienum puto_; I am curious about even John Smith. The desire next in strength to this (an opposite pole, indeed, of the same magnet) is that of communicating the unintelligence we have carefully picked up.

Men in general may be divided into the inquisitive and the communicative. To the first cla.s.s belong Peeping Toms, eaves-droppers, navel-contemplating Brahmins, metaphysicians, travellers, Empedocleses, spies, the various societies for promoting Rhinothism, Columbuses, Yankees, discoverers, and men of science, who present themselves to the mind as so many marks of interrogation wandering up and down the world, or sitting in studies and laboratories. The second cla.s.s I should again subdivide into four. In the first subdivision I would rank those who have an itch to tell us about themselves,--as keepers of diaries, insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, Horace Walpoles, autobiographers, poets. The second includes those who are anxious to impart information concerning other people,--as historians, barbers, and such. To the third belong those who labor to give us intelligence about nothing at all,--as novelists, political orators, the large majority of authors, preachers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth come those who are communicative from motives of public benevolence,--as finders of mares'-nests and bringers of ill news. Each of us two-legged fowls without feathers embraces all these subdivisions in himself to a greater or less degree, for none of us so much as lays an egg, or incubates a chalk one, but straightway the whole barn-yard shall know it by our cackle or our cluck. _Omnibus hoc vitium est._ There are different grades in all these cla.s.ses. One will turn his telescope toward a back-yard, another toward Ura.n.u.s; one will tell you that he dined with Smith, another that he supped with Plato. In one particular, all men may be considered as belonging to the first grand division, inasmuch as they all seem equally desirous of discovering the mote in their neighbor's eye.

To one or another of these species every human being may safely be referred. I think it beyond a peradventure that Jonah prosecuted some inquiries into the digestive apparatus of whales, and that Noah sealed up a letter in an empty bottle, that news in regard to him might not be wanting in case of the worst. They had else been super or subter human.

I conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons who continually peep and pry at the keyhole of that mysterious door through which, sooner or later, we all make our exits, so there are doubtless ghosts fidgetting and fretting on the other side of it, because they have no means of conveying back to this world the sc.r.a.ps of news they have picked up in that. For there is an answer ready somewhere to every question, the great law of _give and take_ runs through all nature, and if we see a hook, we may be sure that an eye is waiting for it. I read in every face I meet a standing advertis.e.m.e.nt of information wanted in regard to A. B., or that the friends of C. D. can hear something to his disadvantage by application to such a one.