Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848

How one loves a summer day with all its gentle glories its murmured music – its delicious fragrance – its warmth, gladdening, not oppressing, its soft and soothing air – its dreamy feel, its shadows and its lights – its brilliant visions and its stirring thoughts – and more, far more, its loving memories!

SONGMy dwelling is no lordly hall,I rule no wide domain;No bending servants wait my call,No flatterers swell my train;But roses twine around my home,Bright smiles my presence greet;The woodland wild is mine to roam,Mine Summer's odors sweet.No costly diamonds deck my hair,No cloth of gold have I;But gorgeous robes and jewels rareStay not the sad heart's sigh.Those gems might bind an aching brow,There is no pain in mine;Red gold might win a faithless vow,And I be left to pine.BY G. P. R. JAMES

It may seem perhaps a paradox to say that expectation is enjoyment. Nevertheless it is so on this earth. Fruition is for heaven. With the accomplishment of every desire there is so much of disappointment mingled that it cannot be really called enjoyment, for fancy always exercises itself upon the future; and when we obtain the hard reality for which we wished, the charms with which imagination decorated it are gone. Did we but state the case to ourselves as it truly is, whenever we conceive any of the manifold desires which lead us on from step to step through life, the proposition would be totally different from that which man forever puts before his own mind, and we should take one step toward undeceiving ourselves. We continually say, "if I could attain such an object, I should be quite contented." But what man ought to say to himself is, "I believe this or that acquisition would give me happiness." He would soon find that it did not do so; and the never-ceasing recurrence of the lesson might, in the end, teach him to ask what was the source of his disappointment? Was it that other circumstances in his own fate were so altered, even while he pursued the path of endeavor, as to render attainment no longer satisfactory? – was it that the object sought was intrinsically different when attained, from that which he had reasonably believed it to be while pursuing it? – or was it that his fancy had gilded it with charms not its own, and that he had voluntarily and blindly persuaded himself that it was brighter and more excellent than it was? Perhaps the answer, yes, might be returned to all these questions; but yet I fear the chief burden of deceit would rest with imagination, and that man would ever find he had judged of the future without sufficient grounds, and had suffered desire to stimulate hope, and hope to cheat expectation. Yet, perhaps, if he would but turn back and look behind, when disappointment and success had been obtained together, he would find that the pleasures lasted in the pursuit, especially at the time when fruition was drawing nearer and nearer, would, in the sum, make up the amount of enjoyment which he had anticipated in possession.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIERA DREAM OF SUMMERBland as the morning breath of JuneThe south-west breezes play;And through its haze the winter noonSeems warm as summer day.The snow-plumed angel of the northHas dropped his icy spear;Again the mossy earth looks forth,Again the streams gush clear.The fox his hill-side cell forsakes,The muskrat leaves his nook,The blue-bird in the meadow brakesIs singing with the brook."Bear up, O Mother Nature!" cryBird, breeze, and streamlet free,"Our winter voices prophesyOf summer days to thee!"So in the winters of the soul,By bitter blasts and drear,O'erswept, from memory's frozen pole,Will sunny days appear,Reviving Hope and Faith, they showThe soul its living powers,And low beneath the winter's snowLie gems of summer flowers.The night is mother of the day,The winter of the spring,And ever upon old decayThe greenest mosses cling;Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,Through showers the sunbeams fall;For God, who loveth all his works,Has left his Hope with all.BY THE AUTHOR OF "GRANTLEY MANOR."SILENCE

What a strange power there is in silence! How many resolutions are formed – how many sublime conquests effected during that pause, when the lips are closed, and the soul secretly feels the eye of her Maker upon her! When some of those cutting, sharp, blighting words have been spoken which send the hot indignant blood to the face and head, if those to whom they are addressed keep silence, look on with awe, for a mighty work is going on within them, and the Spirit of Evil, or their Guardian Angel, is very near to them in that hour. During that pause they have made a step toward heaven or toward hell, and an item has been scored in the book which the day of judgment shall see opened. They are the strong ones of the earth, the mighty for good or for evil, those who know how to keep silence when it is a pain and a grief to them; those who give time to their own souls, to wax strong against temptation; or to the powers of wrath, to stamp upon them their withering passage.

BY CURRER BELLTIMELife, believe, is not a dreamSo dark as sages say;Oft a little morning rainForetells a pleasant day.Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,But these are transient all;If the shower will make the roses bloom,O why lament its fall?Rapidly, merrily,Life's sunny hours flit by,Gratefully, cheerily,Enjoy them as they fly!What though Death at times steps in,And calls our best away?What though sorrow seems to win,O'er hope, a heavy sway?Yet hope again elastic springs,Unconquered, though she fell:Still buoyant are her golden wings,Still strong to bear us well.Manfully, fearlessly,The day of trial bear,For gloriously, victoriously,Can courage quell despair!

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS

Vanity Fair, a Novel without a Hero. By W. M. Thackeray. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1 vol. 8vo.

This is one of the most striking novels of the season. It bears little resemblance in tone, spirit and object, to the other popular romances of the day. The author follows in the track of Fielding rather than Bulwer, and aims at representing the world as it is. Though his mind is not creative, it is eminently delineative, and he has succeeded in cramming into one volume a large variety of characters, each expressing one of the different forms of worldliness, and all belonging strictly to the world we live in. Though the novel thus relates exclusively to the world, and indicates a most remarkable knowledge of the selfish element in human nature, in the multitudinous modifications which that element receives from individual peculiarities, the general tone of the author himself is so far from being worldly, that it is distinguished by singular manliness, cheerfulness and generosity. There is nothing morbid, nothing of the hater or the sentimentalist in his representations. He trusts himself resolutely to the genuine emotions of the heart, but he guards himself against all superfine feelings and manufactured sentiment. His characters are so true that at first we are inclined to consider them commonplace. In their development, however, we soon find that the author is a master in his art, that without pretension and without exaggeration, he touches profound springs of thought and sentiment, and represents with a graceful decision, and in clear light, those evanescent and unconscious transpirations of character, in which a novelist's capacity is most truly exhibited.

The animating spirit of the novel is that master-piece of address and cunning, little Becky Sharp. Tact and talent never had a worthier representative than this character. She indicates the extreme point of worldly success to which these qualities will carry a person, and also the impossibility of their providing against all contingencies in life. Becky steadily rises in the world, reaches a certain height, makes one inevitable mistake, and then as steadily falls, while many of her simple companions, whom she despises as weaklings, succeed from the very simplicity with which they follow the instinctive sagacity of pure and honest feeling. Colonel Rawdon Crawley, a brainless sensualist, whom Becky marries, and in some degree reforms, but who, by having an occasional twinkle of genuine sentiment in his heart, always was her superior, is drawn both with a breadth and a nicety of touch which is rare in such delineations. The exact amount of humanity which coexists with his rascality and stupidity, is given with perfect accuracy. Sir Pitt Crawley, coarse, uneducated, sordid, quarrelsome, his small, sharp mind an epitome of vulgar shrewdness, is a personation to force laughter from the lungs of a misanthrope. Old Mr. Sedley is a most truthful representation of a broken-down merchant, conceived in the spirit of that humane humor which blends the ludicrous and the pathetic in one. Joe Sedley, the East Indian, slightly suggests Major Bagstock. He has the major's physical circumference, apoplectic turn and swell of manner, with the addition of Cockney vulgarity and cowardice. His retreat from Brussels, just before the battle of Waterloo, is described with the art of a comic Xenophan.

In the characters of George Osborne, Dobbin and Amelia, the author has succeeded admirably. They are wonderfully true to nature, and indicate even a finer power of characterization than is exhibited in the more strongly marked personages of the work.

The test of the excellence of a novel is the clearness with which its events and characters are remembered after it has been read. We think that Vanity Fair will bear this criterion. All its characters are recognized in memory as living beings, and we would refer to and quote them with as much confidence as to any of the acquaintances we hold in remembrance.

Life, Letters and Literary Remains of John Keats. Edited by Richard Moncton Milnes. New York: Geo. P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo.

This book, the long promised, has at last appeared, and we must confess that, from the time expended in its preparation, we expected a more satisfactory result. The biography, though written in a style of elaborate elegance, and pleasing enough as regards cadence of period and felicity of phrase, tells little about Keats which is new, and leaves many obscure passages of his life in the same darkness in which it found them. Nothing to the purpose is told of the lady who was the object of Keats's passionate love, and who shares with consumption in being the dismal cause of his early death. Mr. Milnes points triumphantly to the new facts and private letters he has included in the volume, in proof that the common impression that Keats lacked manliness of character, is an error; but instead of proving that Keats was a strong man, he has very nearly proved that he himself is a sentimentalist. The characteristic of Keats is sensitiveness to external impressions, the characteristic of Milnes is sensitiveness to self; the page of one throngs with delicious sensations, but leaves no strong impression of character; that of the other is pervaded by a thoughtful ennui, and leaves an impression of egotistic weakness of character. Of course, Keats is the stronger man of the two, and a stronger man even than Milnes's musical sentences indicate, but still not a strong man in the strict meaning of the phrase.

The letters of Keats are exceedingly interesting, and some of them fine specimens of brilliant epistolary composition, but we think there is a general tone of languid jauntiness observable in them, which shows a certain feebleness at the heart of his being. He seems a man whom every one would desire to see placed in happy circumstances, but not one who would bear bravely up under bad circumstances. The state of his finances occupies a good portion of his letters, and it is often very pleasantly stated. As early as 1817, he speaks of receiving a note for £20, and avows his intention of destroying with it "some of the minor heads of that hydra, the dun;" to conquer which he says, the knight need have no sword or shield, but only the "Bank-note of Faith and Cash of Salvation, and set out against the monster invoking the aid of no Archimago or Urganda, but finger me the paper, light as the Sybil's leaves in Virgil, whereat the fiend skulks off with his tail between his legs.. I think," he adds, "I could make a nice little allegorical poem, called "The Dun," where we would have the Castle of Carelessness, the Drawbridge of Credit, Sir Novelty Fashion's expedition against the City of Tailors, &c., &c." There is a good deal of this coquetry with indigence in the volume.

There is one curious letter to Reynolds, referring to Wordsworth's calling the exquisite Hymn to Pan, in "Endymion," "a pretty piece of Paganism." Keats took the words in a contemptuous sense, and wrote a letter from the feelings it excited, reminding us in its style of an essay by Emerson. We extract it as almost the best thing in the book.

Hampstead, February 3, 1818.

My Dear Reynolds, – I thank you for your dish of filberts. Would I could get a basket of them by way of dessert every day for the sum of two pence, (two sonnets on Robin Hood, sent by the two penny post.) Would we were a sort of athereal pigs, and turned loose to feed upon spiritual mast and acorns! which would be merely a squirrel and feeding upon filberts; for what is a squirrel but an airy pig, or a filbert but a sort of archangelical acorn? About the nuts being worth cracking, all I can say is, that where there are a throng of delightful images ready drawn, simplicity is the only thing. It may be said that we ought to read our contemporaries, that Wordsworth, &c., should have their due from us. But, for the sake of a few fine imaginative or domestic passages, are we to be bullied into a certain philosophy engendered in the whims of an egotist? Every man has his speculations, but every man does not brood and peacock over them till he makes a false coinage and deceives himself. Many a man can travel to the very bourne of Heaven, and yet want confidence to put down his half-seeing. Sancho will invent a journey heavenward as well as any body. We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us, and, if we do not agree, seems to put its hand into its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great and unobtrusive; a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject. How beautiful are the retired flowers! How would they lose their beauty, were they to throng into the highway, crying out "Admire me, I am a violet! Dote upon me, I am a primrose!" Modern poets differ from the Elizabethans in this; each of the moderns, like an Elector of Hanover, governs his petty state, and knows how many straws are swept daily from the causeways in all his dominions, and has a continual itching that all the housewives should have their coppers well scoured. The ancients were emperors of vast provinces; they had only heard of the remote ones, and scarcely cared to visit them. I will cut all this. I will have no more of Wordsworth or Hunt in particular. Why should we be of the tribe of Manassah, when we can wander with Esau? Why should we kick against the pricks when we can walk on roses? Why should we be owls when we can be eagles? Why be teazed with "nice-eyed wagtails," when we have in sight "the cherub Contemplation?" Why, with Wordsworth's "Matthew with a bough of wilding in his hand," when we can have Jacques "under an oak," &c.? The secret of the "bough of wilding" will run through your head faster than I can write it. Old Matthew spoke to him some years ago on some nothing, and because he happens in an evening walk to imagine the figure of the old man, he must stamp it down in black and white, and it is henceforth sacred. I don't mean to deny Wordsworth's grandeur and Hunt's merit, but I mean to say we need not be teazed with grandeur and merit when we can have them uncontaminated and unobtrusive. Let us have the old Poets and Robin Hood. Your letter and its sonnets gave me more pleasure than will the Fourth Book of "Childe Harold," and the whole of any body's life and opinions.

In return for your dish of filberts, I have gathered a few catkins. 2 I hope they'll look pretty.

"No, those days are gone away," &c.

I hope you will like them – they are at least written in the spirit of outlawry. Here are the Mermaid lines; —

"Souls of Poets dead and gone," &c.

In the hope that these scribblings will be some amusement for you this evening, I remain, copying on the hill,

Your sincere friend and co-scribbler,John Keats.

The reader rises from the biography of Keats with the impression that it tells one of the most melancholy stories in the history of literature. The account of his last days is beyond measure painful. The poems now published for the first time, though good enough to make a reputation, will hardly add to the fame of Keats.

The Women of the Revolution. By Elizabeth F. Ellet. New York: Baker & Scribner. 2 vols. 12mo.

We are under obligations to Mrs. Ellet for the two volumes now before us. They are the first fruits of a large harvest. And we doubt not that the authoress will pursue the subject, and give "continuations," until something like justice shall be done to the women, the mothers, sisters, wives and sweethearts of the great and good men of our Revolution. We wish that some just appreciation of what all society owes woman could be had. We wish that some one would sit down and show how all great efforts have their origin in woman's devotion to her duty, and all great men owe their position to their mother's faithful service, and how society owes the advantages which it may possess to the plastic mind of women. In this spirit Mrs. Ellet has prepared the two volumes before us, and has by her labors added one other name to the long list that claims the gratitude of Americans. Of course when notices of one hundred and twenty-four women are crowded into two duodecimo volumes, no great extent can be allowed to the biography of any one. Yet by a judicious disposition of material, and selection of prominent places for really prominent persons, Mrs. Ellet has given enough to make her readers comprehend the character, services and position of all her heroines. It happens to us to have known something of the private life of several mentioned in the volumes, and while we recollect much that is not recorded, we are bound to confess that the character of each so far as we know is well brought out, and additional materials might serve only to sustain the opinion formed by what is offered. We regard Mrs. Ellet's work only as a prelude – a rich, delightful, prelude – but it must be followed by other performances. The work is enriched with the likenesses of several ladies whose biographies are given – one or two of these we know are correct. The others resemble what we recollect to have heard denominated good likenesses.

Orators of the American Revolution. By E. L. Magoon. New York: Baker & Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo.

Mr. Magoon is a writer of great fluency and sensibility, who "wreaks" his thoughts upon expression. He has given us a very exciting volume, glowing with revolutionary fervor, and eloquent of revolutionary heroes. The great difficulty is that each of his orators is described in terms which a cool person might hesitate in applying to Demosthenes and Cicero. Mr. Magoon writes too much on the high-pressure principle. As we move down the Mississippi stream of his rhetoric, we are pleased with the rapidity of the motion, and the chivalrous feeling of the captain of the boat, but we look occasionally at the boiler and the engine with some fear of an explosion.

Seriously, the volume will doubtless serve its purpose of impressing a great idea of our revolutionary orators on the popular mind – to reach which mind a certain extravagance of statement and description is now considered necessary. The glowing mode of writing history and biography is, doubtless, better than the dry and dead mode, but a medium between the two, combining life and movement with accuracy and discrimination, is better still. However, we know of no book on the subject so good as the present. It can be read at one sitting, and it leaves a strong impression on the mind of the power of our great orators. Every production which forcibly conveys an idea of our historical men as living souls, as well as living names, deserves to succeed.

Historical and Miscellaneous Questions. By Richard Mangnall. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo.

This has been one of the most successful educational books ever published. The present edition is from the eighty-fourth London edition. The sale in England has reached a hundred thousand copies. A mere glance at the book will explain its popularity. It embraces the elements of Mythology, Astronomy, Architecture, Heraldry, as well as Ancient and Modern History, and gives exactly that kind of information which every body needs. The first principles and foundations of knowledge are often imperfectly understood by persons moderately learned. Few have any system in reading or study, but cram their minds with miscellaneous matter of various kinds, without regard to arrangement, and with no clear perception of the principles of any thing. Such a book as the present is needed not only by youth, but by many men and women who would be offended at the charge of ignorance. No person can read it without some addition to his knowledge. It is got up with remarkable skill, and covers a very wide extent of erudition.

Thrilling Incidents of the Wars of the United States: Comprising the most Striking and Remarkable Events of the Revolution, the French War, the Second War with Great Britain, and the Mexican War. With Three Hundred Engravings. By the Author of the Army and Navy of the United States. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 8vo.

This is a large octavo volume, filled with deeply interesting historical anecdotes, illustrated with engravings – a volume which will create a taste for the whole series of American history, while it gratifies in part a useful appetite. The work is beautifully printed and admirably got out.

Amelia. This is one of Miss Leslie's novels, and it is worthy of that lady's fame, founded on liberal efforts to improve the heart, and make men and women better, by setting before them instances of folly and examples of virtue.

EDITOR'S TABLE

The Total Eclipse of the Moon. – In the month of September – the night of the 12th and 13th – there was a total eclipse of the moon. Those who would know all about it – exactly what was done when the adumbration commenced, when and how long total obscuration was observable, and when exactly the satellite passed out of the shadow of her principal planet – have nothing to do but read in the almanacs the predictions and calculations of the event – for exactly to a second the whole was performed as set down by the astronomers. It was a beautiful sight for those who love to watch the phenomena of the heavens, and there was not a cloud, not a passing scud, to prevent a complete view of the whole movement, from the first stain upon the eastern limb of the moon until the whole passed off from her western side.

This eclipse of the moon is caused by that planet's passing through the shadow of the earth, projected far into space; and in proportion to the proximity of the moon is the duration of the eclipse – so that we who occupied the side of the earth to which the eclipse was visible, really saw the moon darkened by the intervention of our own shadow. How like life is this! How many thousands are daily condemned for some apparent fault, which they have indeed acquired from those who condemn. How many live and suffer in the shadow of those who sneer – and persecute while they impart the cause. How many parents, by their errors, keep the sunlight of Truth and Religion from their children, and yet condemn them for the shadow which rests upon their mind, and makes them objects of undesirable notoriety – profitless members of the social circle.

Go and inquire of that heart-broken, condemned female, why she ceased to be the light of the circle in which she was placed – and she will answer that the very beings whom she was to bless, and from whom she was to derive blessings, darkened her pathway by the interference of injudicious kindness or ill-timed severity, and she became totally eclipsed. Ask the youth who has just made shipwreck of his wealth and his fame, and he will tell you that in passing through the shadow which relatives and associates had thrown across his path, his eclipse was so long that society had no patience to await his return to light – no mercy for the obscuration which their ill-timed lenity to others had made him suffer.

But the moon on the morning of the 13th September passed out of the obscuration, and went on her course diffusing light to all, and maintaining her supremacy, in apparent size and real lustre, above all the stellar orbs. And thus it is with man. The shadow of misfortune or error, of indiscretion, is always projected across his path – he is liable with every change to suffer some obscuration, some diminution of his brightness, some eclipse of that portion bestowed on man. Let society wait – let him toil onward – let there be a little faith, a little confidence, a little hope, and he will recover all he has lost, he will emerge from the shadow that is upon him and be bright and profitable as before. In the deepest obscuration of the full, or the earthward face of the moon, when all but its bare existence seemed blotted out, the upper, heavenward surface was undimmed, and reflected all the stellar glories of the higher planets. And thus is it with man. Sorrows, disappointments, errors, wrongs, darken his way, and all that is visible to those around him seems sullied and obscure, and he is left to toil onward through the deep shadow of misery and shame – the earthward side of his heart in a total eclipse – but the heavenward portion, the cherished and the blessed, though beyond the gaze, and often beyond the comprehension of the worldly – is bathed in the holy light of heavenly influences – it knows no diminution of brightness, no darkness from earthly shadows, no dimness from worldly cares or worldly sorrow, but, turned away from the observation and uses of mankind, its phaze is one of unalterable quiet, of undimmed and shadowless lustre. Earth is not permitted to project one shadow upon its plane, while heaven and heavenly light lie beautiful and beautifying upon its surface.