The Galaxy, June 1877 Part 28

Mr. Habberton shows how fit he is to be the editor of selections from standard authors by publishing the Roger de Coverly papers[19] without a note or emendation. We have these celebrated numbers of the "Spectator"

in all the grace and humor of the originals, and with the quaint flavor which age has necessarily added to them unimpaired. The editor informs us that after a careful hunt through the book market, he finds the previous editions of Sir Roger out of print, and for that reason he publishes this one, though his first plan for the "Select British Essayists" did not include it. He thinks the publication peculiarly timely now, when "the standard of letters threatens to become vastly different from that under which English literature has gained whatever it possesses of real value." We do not agree with him in antic.i.p.ating the complete shelving of Sir Roger in case this threatened change really takes place. In all times the really great authors will be read by the few, and talked about by the many. But however that may be, Mr.

Habberton's handsome and convenient collection of these papers will be welcomed by the many who are glad to learn how famous authors wrote, and yet have not taste enough for cla.s.sical reading to attack the whole "Spectator" itself.

[19] "_Sir Roger de Coverly:_ Consisting of the Papers Relating to Sir Roger, which were Originally Published in the 'Spectator.'"

With an Introductory Essay by JOHN HABBERTON. New York: G. P.

Putnam's Sons. $1.25.

The disciples of Swedenborg will read with interest a little book of a mildly controversial character by B. F. Barrett, which endeavors to show what the New Church really is.[20] The controversy is not with the unbelievers in Swedenborg, but with some prominent persons among his disciples. Its object is to show that the New Jerusalem, or New Church, is not an organized and visible body of people united by a creed and a form of worship more or less uniform. This view, although, as the writer says, it has prevailed among the students of Swedenborg for nearly a hundred years and is probably held by a large majority of them at the present day, he regards as an utterly mistaken conception. He, on the contrary, regards the theory of separation as false and vicious.

The function of Swedenborgianism, if so it must be called, he believes to be to uproot and destroy the mischievous spirit of sect, to exalt charity above faith, life above doctrine, both inside and outside of all the churches. This he regards as that second coming of the Lord which Swedenborg taught; and this he sees in the signs of the times.

Few of us know really what Swedenborgianism is; and some of us have tried in vain to discover what there is in it which captivates some clear-headed as well as true-hearted men. But if this be Swedenborgianism, who of us is there that will not bid it G.o.d speed?

[20] "_The New Church:_ Its Nature and Whereabout. Being a Critical Examination of the Popular Theory, with some Ill.u.s.trations of its Tendency and Legitimate Fruits." By B. F.

BARRETT. 16mo, pp. 213. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.

--"The Library of Swedenborg,"[21] edited by Mr. Barrett, is to consist of twelve handy volumes, giving a complete summary of Swedenborg's system in a series of extracts from his writings, grouped together under appropriate headings, indicating the special doctrine they ill.u.s.trate. These volumes are of the most convenient size and neatly printed and bound. They are, in short, in every respect in contrast with the bulky tomes in which Swedenborg's system is usually and so repulsively presented. Three volumes of the series have thus far been published.

[21] "_Volume Third The Swedenborg Library._" Edited by B. F.

BARRETT. Freedom, Rationality, and Catholicity. From the Writings of Emanuel Swendenborg. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.

A book the author of which publishes his own portrait as a frontispiece is opened with prejudice by most sensible men, we believe, and phrenology is not regarded with great favor by the majority of such readers. But here is a book which is able to stand up against both these prejudices.[22] Whatever we may think of phrenology, we cannot withhold our hearty approval of the methods of teaching which are recommended by Mr. Sizer. He would have the teacher study his pupil, watch the action of his mind, detect his propensities, and then direct his efforts accordingly. The author does not content himself with generalities; he goes into particulars; he indicates temperaments, describes mental traits and modes of action, and gives good counsel as to their direction. His views of training include the moral as well as the mental side of the pupil, and also his physical nature. Children trained according to the system here recommended and set forth would have the most made of them that their organizations permit. We commend the book to all teachers and parents. It will interest them, and if they study it and follow its counsels, it will profit their children.

As to the phrenology of it, they may let that go. Like the allegory of "The Faerie Queene," it won't bite them.

[22] "_How to Teach according to Temperament and Mental Development_; or, Phrenology in the School Room and the Family."

By NELSON SIZER. 16mo, pp. 331. New York: Wells & Co.

In poetry we have before us this month only a sacred tragedy, the writer of which we fear has been misled into verse-writing by an ambition to justify his parents' choice of a name.[23] The incidents of his tragedy are of course derived from the Old Testament, and in every case in which they are in any way modified it is for the worse. His poetry reminds us of that dreary stuff that was written before the appearance of Marlowe and the other Elizabethan dramatists. We wonder that the writer undertook a subject which had been so ably handled by others before him, and particularly by Charles Heavysege, to whose vigorous and highly picturesque dramatic poem[24] we direct the attention of our poetry-loving readers.

[23] "_King Saul:_ A Tragedy." By BYRON A. BROOKS. 16mo, pp. 144.

New York: Nelson & Phillips.

[24] Published by Osgood & Company.

NEBULae.

--The result of months of agitation and negotiation is that to Russia is left the task of driving the Turks out of Europe single-handed.

Well, Russia is content, and not only content, but pleased. She does not object to being left to seek her own ends by her own means, and would like nothing better than to have all the other powers take the position of disinterested bystanders while she whops poor little Johnny Turk, and takes as much as she likes of his territory by way of indemnity. She meant this all along, and it has been amusing to see how she has with a combination of tact and persistency attained her end. Of course as to her motives there can be no doubt; they are purely philanthropic and religious. It is for the Christians in the Turkish provinces, about whom England began the disturbance, the result of which promises to be Russia's success and her own discomfiture. The att.i.tude of Turkey wins respect and sympathy. It has been manly in tone, and in diplomacy not unskilful. The Turks have always shown a combination of stubbornness and craft which have made them, except in the field, more than a match for their Christian enemies. Without approving Turkish faith or life, we may yet admire the firmness and dignity with which they have refused to submit to a dictation which would exclude them from the rank of independent nations. They made the mistake of not putting the Czar palpably in the wrong, which they would have done by sending the emba.s.sy to St. Petersburg to treat of disarmament. But he would have probably wriggled but of this position in some way; and of this they may have felt sure. Plainly the Turks feel that they are in a crisis of their national existence, and they are desperate. They know of course that between Great Britain and Russia there is a determination to drive them out of Europe, and that their only safety thus far has been in the rivalry and jealousy of those two powers. Since the effort is to be made, they feel that they are in as good a condition to resist it now as they ever will be; and with the desperation of their character they have gone into the unequal fight. What will be the end, no one can foresee; but of one thing we may be sure, that the British Government will not fight for the Turks, and as certainly they will not fight with Russia against them. Neither Germany nor Austria is likely to spend blood and treasure for the aggrandizement of Russia. Therefore, although some publicists look for a great change in the map of Europe, it seems rather that the result of the war, even if it be unfavorable to Turkey, will be little more than the liberation and autonomy of one or two of the provinces.

--The personal nature of our politics was never more apparent than it is at present. On all sides, and in regard to all questions, we meet with evidence of it. Whether it be in regard to great questions of national importance, the formation of parties, or some little State or county matter, the point generally first raised is how Mr. ---- or Mr.

---- will be likely to feel about it. The subject is not discussed upon broad grounds of right, of law, or of policy, but with regard to the effect that it will have upon such or such an "interest," which is represented by Mr. ----, the said interest being sometimes that of a railway, or a "ring," but generally that of a knot of professional politicians. This seems strange in a country where the government is "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Our democracy has subjected us to the condition of the old Roman clients. We do not have leaders in politics, but users; men who use us for their own advantage.

--China and j.a.pan are turning the tables upon us bravely. We have been sending missionaries to them for two hundred years and more, and now a young disciple of Buddha comes among us to criticise our religion and to tell us that the moral principles and the conduct of Christians are of a lower standard than those taught by Confucius; and a j.a.panese publicist criticises our politics in our leading review, and tells us that we are the slowest people on the face of the earth, and are tied hand and foot by our paper const.i.tutions. There will probably not be many converts to Buddhism; and as probably the Const.i.tution of the United States will not be set aside as a worthless piece of paper in this generation. None the less, however, are these return-missionary efforts of our extremely Oriental friends very significant signs of the times. They show two things: first, the little real effect which, after all, the West has produced upon the East; and last, the freedom of thought and discussion which is now pervading the world. It is safe to say that our Chinese and j.a.panese critics will be listened to with respect; and that not in a mere spirit of tolerance and politeness. The world has changed its position greatly in such respects within the last thirty or fifty years. The pet.i.tion in the English prayer-book in favor of "Jews, Turks, heretics, and infidels," which found its counterpart in the extemporaneous prayers of other orthodox religious sects, is beginning to sound rather antiquated. The idea of holding up Dr.

Gottheil, for instance, as a proper subject for especial prayer, is to most sensible people rather ridiculous, however good Christians they may be. Investigation has found the principles of a high morality in other religious creeds than those of Western Europe and America; and charity, that chiefest of Christian virtues, has taught us to judge others, if we judge them at all, by standards of general application with allowance for peculiar conditions. We have discovered that political sagacity was not confined to the founders of the political systems of modern Europe. It is found that the human mind is much the same under like conditions in all countries and in all times; and we are approaching gradually to Tennyson's "parliament of man" and "federation of the world."

--A sadder story has not been told for a long while than that of the mother and daughter who were excluded from the Shaker settlement at Whitewater, where they had been for fourteen years, and after leaving which, and seeking in vain the means of livelihood, they, in despair, took poison, and died in each other's arms. The sadness is not so much in their death; for to that they were at any time liable; and loving each other fondly, as they manifestly did, in their voluntary death they were not divided. But the mother was at first driven to the Shaker community fourteen years ago, with her little girl, because she had been deserted by the father of her child, to whom she had not been married. She had weakly yielded to the impulse of nature without fortifying herself by a legal claim upon the father of her child, and the world, instead of treating her tenderly and helping her, turned its back upon her and told her that she and the child that she had borne were fit only to starve or to live in a county poor house. After fourteen years of the cold, colorless, and unnatural life of the Shakers, the daughter showed that she was not an abstraction or a forked radish, and behaved like a woman, perhaps not a prudent one, to the young men of the community. She was told that such behavior was only fit for the world's people, and that she and her daughter must go.

But the world's people had driven out the mother herself upon something such grounds years before; and now when she came back she was met by the same stony front. Let us not be misunderstood; we are not justifying or even palliating the mother's conduct. We pa.s.s that point by without consideration. But the point remains that for an error, which, however great, was in the course of nature, the mother became an outcast, and that for indiscretion, also in the course of nature, on the daughter's part, both afterward were turned away from the Shaker community; and then they found the world so hard, and life in it so bitter, that, although one was still in the prime of life and the other in its early morning, they chose rather death together. They might have been base and unnatural, hard-hearted, malicious, slanderous, revengeful, covetous, grasping, utterly regardless of the happiness and, within the law, of the rights of others, the mother might not have loved her child, the child might not have loved her mother, and yet the world would not have driven them to the Shakers and the Shakers would not have driven them out again into the world to die. It is an old story, we do not hesitate to say an old wrong, of which every man and woman with an unperverted heart admits the cruelty in the abstract, but of which the collective world is always ready to be guilty. A woman who "gets a husband," no matter by what base arts or design, is "received"; a woman who gives the world a child otherwise than according to law is cast out, often by those who are not worthy to touch the hem of her garment. It is not necessary to justify women who err in this way before condemning the pharisaic righteousness which stones them into despair. "Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more."

--Compare the wrong done in such a case with the conduct of a "respectable" young woman whose sudden disappearance from her home near Waterford, New York, caused much excitement. She reappeared after a week's absence, and accused three young men of the place of abducting her. They were rather wild fellows, and they were arrested. But upon investigation the story was found to be a pure fabrication. The girl had gone suddenly off to visit some of her relatives; and to gratify some feeling, whatever it might have been, she trumped up this accusation. It is impossible to conceive a fouler, baser act. And yet she will not be an outcast; she is "respectable"; no one will venture to call her a "bad girl." But suppose that He who said "neither do I condemn thee" were to decide between the relative fitness of the two for a place in His kingdom--is there any doubt in whose favor He would speak? The law cannot decide as He would decide; and the world is right in insisting upon the chast.i.ty of woman; but is the world right in regarding chast.i.ty as the only female virtue, or at least in regarding a lapse from continence as the only wrong which should exclude woman from the pale of decent society, and deprive her of a right to earn her living among other women? Is it right in asking only one question in regard to a woman's conduct and in "receiving" a married woman, merely because she is married, although she may make her home a little h.e.l.l for her husband and her children? We are not advocating looseness upon the former point, but only comparing the world's treatment of natural error with its treatment of essential and malicious wrong-doing. If the one should be condemned--and it should be--what should be done in case of the other? Motive gives every act its true character; and if we teach women that a life filled with acts the motives of which are mean and malicious may be "respectable," are we not subjecting them to a daily discipline of moral degradation?

--And with it all there is such a foolish, deplorable, ruinous neglect of the proper instruction of young women. They are taught heaps of things that are of no possible use to them, and they are not taught those which concern them most nearly. Here is this miserable "Throop-Price" affair, as it is called, in which a young lady belonging to a family of some culture and social position is actually taken before a clergyman and half married before she knows it; but suspecting that something is wrong, and being a.s.sured by the clergyman that the ceremony he is performing solemnizes a real, binding marriage, she flies off, but is immediately induced to go before the Mayor, and is there married out of hand when she meant to do no such thing. It seems incredible; but it is actually true. We make, as we should do, an awful fuss about marriage, and a good marriage is, as it should be, the desire of a young woman's heart, and yet in regard to all the essentials of marriage as well as the duties and personal relations of married life, we leave them in ignorance. There would seem to be but two ways about this matter: one, the French way of keeping young girls in seclusion and absolute ignorance, and then marrying them off as a sort of business transaction--an arrangement that does not suit our social life, and which, it must be confessed, does not tend to produce the best state of morals in France; the other to give young girls reasonable liberty, under the general supervision of their parents and family, but in this case to arm them with knowledge, to let them know what marriage is legally, ceremonially, socially, and physiologically.

This is a safe way, and the only safe one. Let this be done, and then if a girl "goes wrong" in any way, it is merely one of those unavoidable misfortunes which some of us have to encounter.

--Was there ever anything so amazing as this blue-gla.s.s craze that has taken possession of about two-thirds of those who are included in the term "everybody"? It would seem as if there were no limit to man's credulity, particularly upon those subjects which concern him most nearly, religion and the preservation of bodily health. In both he is ready to listen to any plausible person who will tell him to "do some great thing." Tell him that he must live a life morally pure and physically clean and sober, that he must not sin against his own consciousness of right, and that he must wash himself and eat simple, wholesome food, conform himself to the indications of his physical structure, and he will a.s.sent in a careless way, and immediately violate every rule of sound morals and physiology. But tell him that he must make a pilgrimage to Rome, or that he must lift six or seven hundred pounds daily, swallow pills and bitters, or live in a blue conservatory, and he will p.r.i.c.k up his long ears, and do it if he can.

What wonder that quacks all make money, and that the "patent medicine interest" should have a representative in Congress! But quacks and patent medicines usually must have the benefit of a few years of copious advertising before they effect their purpose; whereas blue gla.s.s was written into popular favor with the dash of a pen. It trebled in price in less than so many weeks. The notion that light should be filtered of every ray but the blue one to produce the best effect upon the human body and brain is certainly one of the most fantastic that has been broached since the days of the medical mountebanks. The best use to which this gla.s.s can be put is to the making of hot-beds. Let our early lettuce and pease by all means be brought forward under sashes glazed in blue. What cauliflowers we shall have, and what cabbages! At present the crop of cabbage heads, to be sure, promises to be very large through the intervention of blue gla.s.s; but much the greater number of them appear to be growing upon human shoulders.

--Science, or self-styled science, however, insists on playing its tricks with colors as with other matter--if color be matter. There is now a budding theory that the eye is and always has been in a state of development, and that we are yet to discover new colors of which we have at present no idea. In support of this it is urged that in early literature we find only the strong primary colors mentioned--red, blue, black; black, however, being the absence of true color. It is supposed that the other colors were not seen; and in support of this it is urged that Aristotle a.s.signs only four colors to the rainbow. But surely this is scientific trifling. It is natural that early writers upon any subject should notice only the strongest and most salient points connected with it. Its finer gradations become the subject of subsequent discussion. Particularly might this be expected to be the case in the ruder states of society. It is not that the senses cannot perceive; for the savage senses are very keen, as is well known, but that language, perhaps even the mind, does not discriminate. It is content with broad and marked distinctions. So with regard to the eye and color. We may be very sure that a perfect eye sees, and has always seen, all possible color. But unless led thereto by science or art, or love of beauty in dress or ornamentation, the observer is content with noticing the strong tints, red, blue, yellow, black, white--and green also, which is so widely spread over nature. But as to a new color, that is quite impossible, unless some new gradation or combination of color may have a new name given to it. For in the spectrum we have a perfect gradation of colors, all that are in the ray; and after we pa.s.s the primaries, the others are but combinations and gradations. To get a new color we must wait for a new eye and a new sun.

--Where will the desire for championship not lead some one of us, and where will it end? We have champion walkers and skaters, champion boot-blacks and bill-posters; and out at the West the other day a lad employed in a newspaper office to wrap papers for the mails announced himself as the champion paper-wrapper, and challenged anybody to wrap with him--the most in so many hours. The last champion performance is that of a "professor of dancing" (Anglece, a dancing master), who waltzed for five consecutive hours. It was an occasion. We are told how, after waltzing some half-a-dozen persons, male and female, out of breath, the "intrepid professor" kept on; how he changed partners without stopping his regular steps; how he drank a gla.s.s of wine now and then, while stepping in time to the music; and how, when after waltzing steadily for four hours and a half, he showed some signs of faltering, slices of lemon were put into his mouth, ten minutes after swallowing which "the professor revived." Then he became dizzy, and peppermint lozenges were given him. On he went, and in the last five minutes of his stint showed his pluck by "putting in fancy steps"; and his wife, who was now his partner--a sort of nursing partner, it would seem--occasionally whispered "nods of encouragement," a performance which beats the professor's all hollow. "Nods and becks and wreathed smiles" are very natural and very charming on appropriate occasions; but whispered nods are something quite inconceivable. The professor held out, and at half-past twelve "a grand huzza rang out." Is not this rather a pitiful spectacle? If a man dances, let him dance well. If to teach dancing is his vocation, let him get, and let him prize, a reputation for teaching it well. That is reasonable and respectable.

But that a man should spend five whole consecutive hours, nearly a quarter of a day, in dancing for the mere sake of showing that he could keep it up and dance ever so many people down, is rather a sad exhibition of smallness. All these exhibitions spring, not from the desire to do well, which is always and in all things honorable, but from that of doing something that other people cannot do, which is not very admirable. Some other "professor," not to be bluffed, will now challenge this professor; and we shall have a dance for the championship. Then some other professor in Europe will be fired with ambition, and we shall have a grand International Dancing Contest for the Championship of the World. Well, it will be a little better, but not much, than the eating and drinking matches which sometimes take place in England, in which two half-beastly creatures gorge and guzzle in a contest wherein the victor would probably be beaten by almost any four-legged swine. Emulation is a spur to exertion the moral excellence of which is at least questionable; and when it leads to dancing five hours on a stretch or eating five pounds of bacon at a sitting, we see a little what its essence is.

--The curiosities of advertising come out strongly at the far West.

Here is the "Denver Rocky Mountain News" all ablaze with displayed announcements, some of which are of an extraordinary and whimsical character. One man cries out in enormous type, "Deadwood on getting rich if you only save your money; no need of going to the Black Hills if you can buy Groceries at these figures"; another exclaims in very big black letters, "Store your Stoves! and avoid trouble, dirt, rust, hard work, and _profanity_"--the latter a piece of advice very pertinent, it would seem, to the region; another insinuates in a sort of colossal pica that although "Bragg and Stick'em may have a larger stock of men's furnishing goods than all the other houses in the United States put together," the right place to get things cheap and elegant is his establishment (who are the loudly advertising rivals that he pillories as Bragg and Stick'em does not appear); another firm of traders announce themselves as the "Chicago Square-Dealing House"; another, a jeweller, informs the Western world that in consequence of the "great failure of the Milton Gold jewelry company in London, their entire stock has been consigned to us to raise money as soon as possible"--the idea of a consignment from London to Denver does not seem to strike the Western mind as it does us who are somewhat nearer London; two undertakers announce their business by enormous prints of black-plumed hea.r.s.es; and the paper itself publishes a "black list" of debts for sale, ingeniously adding that a dollar a week will be credited to the debtors during the publication; one advertis.e.m.e.nt is headed, "Drunkard, Stop!" an appeal which seems quite in place; for the most important and interesting announcement of all, headed, "Don't you forget it!" is that a certain man has "the best stock of Straight Kentucky Sour-mash Bourbon and Rye _Whiskey_ in the Far West." He may be sure that the Denver people will not forget that.