as With how unaccountable an obstinacy even our best writers persist in talking about "moral courage. if there could be any courage that was not moral. The adjective is improperly applied to the subject instead of the object. The energy which overcomes fear whether fear of evil threatening the person or threatening the impersonal circumstances amid which we exist - is, of course, simply a mental energy is, of course, simply "moral." But, in speaking of "moral courage "" we imply the existence of physical. Quite as reasonable an expression would be that of "bodily thought" or of "muscular imagination.” In looking at the world as it is, we shall find it folly to deny that, to worldly success, a surer path is Villainy than Virtue. What the Scriptures mean by the " leaven of unrighteousness" is that leaven by which men rise. I have now before me a book in which the most noticeable thing is the pertinacity with which "Monarch" and "King" are printed with a capital M and a capital K. The author, it seems, has been lately presented at Court. He will employ a small g in future, I presume, whenever he is so unlucky as to have to speak of his God. "A little learning," in the sense intended by the poet, is, beyond all question, "a dangerous thing but, in regard to that learning which we call "knowledge of the world," it is only a little that is not dangerous. To be thoroughly conversant with Man's heart, is to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped volume of Despair. Not only do I think it paradoxical to speak of a man of genius as personally ignoble, but I confidently maintain that the highest genius is but the loftiest moral nobility. The phrase of which our poets, and more especially our orators, are so fond the phrase "music of the spheres" has arisen simply from a misconception of the Platonic word μovoɩký — which, with the Athenians, included not merely the harmonies of tune and time, but proportion generally. In recommending the study of music ”’ as "the best education for the soul," Plato referred to the cultivation of the Taste, in contradistinction from that of the Pure Reason. By the music of the spheres ' " is meant the agreements the adaptations in a word, the proportions-developed in the astronomical laws. He had no allusion to music in our understanding of the term. The word "mosaic," which we derive from μovoký, refers, in like manner, to the proportion, or harmony of color, observed - or which should be observed in the department of Art so entitled. A pumpkin has more angles than C, and is altogether a cleverer thing. He is remarkable at one point only at that of being remarkable for nothing. Not long ago, to call a man "a great wizzard,' was to invoke for him fire and faggot; but now, when we wish to run our protégé for President, we just dub him "a little magician." The fact is, that, on account of the curious modern bouleversement of old opinion, one cannot be too cautious of the grounds on which he lauds a friend or vituperates a foe. It is laughable to observe how easily any system of Philosophy can be proved false : but then is it not mournful to perceive the impossibility of even fancying any particular system to be true? Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term "Art," I should call it "the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul." The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of " Artist." Denner was no artist. The grapes of Zeuxis were inartistic- unless in a bird's-eye view; and not even the curtain of Parrhasius could conceal his deficiency in point of genius. I have mentioned the veil of the soul." Something of the kind appears indispensable in Art. We can, at any time, double the true beauty of an actual landscape by half closing our eyes as we look at it. The naked Senses sometimes see too but then always they see too much. little A clever French writer of "Memoirs" is quite right in saying that if the Universities had been willing to permit it, the disgusting old débauché of Teos, with his eternal Batyllis, would long ago have been buried in the darkness of oblivion." "Philosophy," says Hegel, is utterly useless and fruitless, and, for this very reason, is the sublimest of all pursuits, the most deserving attention, and the most worthy of our zeal." This jargon was suggested, no doubt, by Tertullian's Mortuus est Dei filius; redibile est quia ineptum — et sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile. I have great faith in fools: friends will call it : Si demain, oubliant d'éclore, - self-confidence my Le jour manquait, eh bien ! demain Un flambeau pour le genre humain. By the way, what with the new electric light and other matters, De Béranger's idea is not so very extravagant. I have sometimes amused myself by endeavoring to fancy what would be the fate of any individual gifted, or rather accursed, with an intellect very far superior to that of his race. Of course, he would be conscious of his superiority; nor could he (if otherwise constituted as man is) help manifesting his consciousness. Thus And he would make himself enemies at all points. since his opinions and speculations would widely differ from those of all mankind that he would be considered a madman, is evident. How horribly painful such a condition! Hell could invent no greater torture than that of being charged with abnormal weakness on account of being abnormally strong. In like manner, nothing can be clearer than that a very generous spirit truly feeling what all merely profess must inevitably find itself misconceived in every direction its motives misinterpreted. Just as extremeness of intelligence would be thought fatuity, so excess of chivalry could not fail of being looked upon as meanness in its last degree: and so on with other virtues. This subject is a painful one indeed. That individuals have so soared above the plane of their race, is scarcely to be questioned; but, in looking back through history for traces of their existence, we should pass over all biographies of "the good and the great," while we search carefully the slight records of wretches who died in prison, in Bedlam, or upon the gallows. My friend, can never commence what he fancies a poem, (he is a fanciful man, after all) without first elaborately invoking the Muses." Like so many she-dogs of John of Nivelles, however, the more he invokes them, the more they decline obeying the invocation. The German "Schwärmerei" not exactly humbug," but " sky-rocketing' seems to be the only term by which we can conveniently designate that peculiar style of criticism which has lately come into fashion, through the influence of certain members of the Fabian family people who live (upon beans) about Boston. "This is right," says Epicurus, "precisely because the people are displeased with it.' "Il y a à parier," says Chamfort Kankars of Mirabeau toute convention reçue· 66 one of the que toute idée publique est une sottise; car elle a con venu au plus grand nombre.' "Si proficere cupis," says the great African bishop, "primo id verum puta quod sana mens omnium hominum Το me, it appears that, in all ages, the most preposterous falsities have been received as truths by at least the mens omnium hominum. As for the sana mens how are we ever to determine what that is? |