Marginalia — 1902 historical reading — reading text

nothing passes from one state to another without passing through all the intermediate states. ————— Not so: — The first number of the “Gentleman's Magazine” has published on the first of January, 1731; but long before this — in 1681 — there appeared the “Monthly Recorder” with all the Magazine features. I have a number of the “London Magazine,” dated 1760; — commenced 1732, at least, but I have reason to think much earlier. ————— Stolen, body and soul (and spoilt in the stealing), from a paper of the same title in the “European Magazine” for December, 1817. Blunderingly done throughout, and must have cost more trouble than an original thing. This makes paragraph 33 of my “Chapter on American Cribbage.” The beauty of these exposés must lie in the precision and unanswerability with which they are given — in day and date — in chapter and verse — and, above all, in an unveiling of the minute trickeries by which the thieves hope to disguise their stolen wares. I must soon a tale unfold, and an astonishing tale it will be. The C—— bears away the bell. The ladies, however, should positively not be guilty of these tricks; — for one has never the heart to unmask or deplume them. After all, there is this advantage in purloining one's Magazine papers; — we are never forced to dispose of them under prime cost. ————— “Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur,” as the acute Seneca well observes. However acute might be Seneca, still he was not sufficiently acute to say this. The sentence is often attributed to him, but it is not to be found in his works. “Semel insanavimus omnes,” a phrase often quoted, is invariably placed to the account of Horace, and with equal error. It is from the “De Honesto Amore” of the Italian Mantuanus, who has Id commune malum; semel insanivimus omnes. In the title, “De Honesto Amore,” by the way, Mantuanus misconceives the force of honestus — just as Dryden does in his translation of Virgil's Et quocunque Deus circum caput egit honestum; which he renders On whate’er side he turns his honest face. —— “Jehovah” is not Hebrew. ————— Macaulay, in his just admiration of Addison, over-rates Tickell, and does not seem to be aware how much the author of the “Elegy” is indebted to French models. Boileau, especially, he robbed without mercy, and without measure. A flagrant example is here. Boileau has the lines: En vain contre “Le Cid” au ministre se ligue; Tout Paris pour Chimène a les yeux de Rodrigue. Tickell thus appropriates them: While the charm ‘d reader with thy thought complies, And views thy Rosamond with Henry's eyes. —— No; — he fell by his own Fame. Like Richmann, he was blasted by the fires himself had sought, and obtained, from the Heavens. ————— I have at length attained the last page, which is a thing to thank God for; and all this may be logic, but I am sure it is nothing more. Until I get the means of refutation, however, I must be content to say, with the Jesuits, Le Sueur and Jacquier, that “I acknowledge myself obedient to the decrees of the Pope against the motion of the Earth.” ————— How overpowering a style is that of Curran! I use “overpowering” in the sense of the English exquisite. I can imagine nothing more distressing than the extent of his eloquence. ————— “With all his faults, however, this author is a man of respectable powers.” Thus discourses, of William Godwin, the “London Monthly Magazine:” May, 1818. ————— “Rhododaphne” is brim-full of music: — e. g. By living streams, in sylvan shades, Where wind and wave symphonious make Rich melody, the youths and maids, No more with choral music wake Lone Echo from her tangled brake. —— How thoroughly — how radically — how wonderfully has “Undine” been misunderstood! Beneath its obvious meaning there runs an under-current, simple, quite intelligible, artistically managed, and richly philosophical. From internal evidence afforded by the book itself, I gather that the author suffered from the ills of a mar-arranged marriage — the bitter reflections thus engendered inducing the fable. In the contrast between the artless, thoughtless, and careless character of Undine before possessing a soul, and her serious, enwrapt, and anxious yet happy condition after possessing it, — a condition which, with all its multiform disquietudes, she still feels to be preferable to her original state, — Fouqué has beautifully painted the difference between the heart unused to love, and the heart which has received its inspiration. The jealousies which follow the marriage, arising from the conduct of Bertalda, are but the natural troubles of love; but the persecutions of Kühleborn and the other water-spirits who take umbrage at Huldbrand's treatment of his wife, are meant to picture certain difficulties from the interference of relations in conjugal matters — difficulties which the author has himself experienced. The warning of Undine to Huldbrand — “Reproach me not upon the waters, or we part for ever” — is intended to embody the truth that quarrels between man and wife are seldom or never irremediable unless when taking place in the presence of third parties. The second wedding of the knight with his gradual forgetfulness of Undine, and Undine's intense grief beneath the waters — are dwelt upon so pathetically — so passionately — that there can be no doubt of the author's personal opinions on the subject of second marriages — no doubt of his deep personal interest in the question. How thrillingly are these few and simple words made to convey his belief that the mere death of a beloved wife does not imply a separation so final or so complete as to justify an union with another! — “The fisherman had loved Undine with exceeding tenderness, and it was a doubtful conclusion to his mind that the mere disappearance of his beloved child could be properly viewed as her death.” — This is where the old man is endeavoring to dissuade the knight from wedding Bertalda. I cannot say whether the novelty of the conception of “Undine,” or the loftiness and purity of its ideality, or the intensity of its pathos, or the rigor of its simplicity, or the high artistical ability with which all are combined into a well-kept, well-motivirt whole of absolute unity of effect — is the particular chiefly to be admired. How delicate and graceful are the transitions from subject to subject! — a point severely testing the autorial power — as, when, for the purposes of the story, it becomes necessary that the knight, with Undine and Bertalda, shall proceed down the Danube. An ordinary novelist would have here tormented both himself and his readers, in his search for a sufficient motive for the voyage. But, in a fable such as “Undine,” how all-sufficient — how well in keeping — appears the simple motive assigned! — “In this grateful union of friendship and affection winter came and passed away; and spring, with its foliage of tender green, and its heaven of softest blue, succeeded to gladden the hearts of the three inmates of the castle. What wonder, then, that its storks and swallows inspired them also with a disposition to travel?” How exquisitely artistic is the management of imagination, so visible in the passages where the brooks are water-spirits and the water-spirits brooks — neither distinctly either! What can be more ethereally ideal than the frequent indeterminate glimpses caught of Kühleborn? — or than his wild lapses into shower and foam? — or than the vanishing of the white wagoner and his white horses into the shrieking and devouring flood? — or than the gentle melting of the passionately weeping bride into the crystal waters of the Danube? What can be more divine than the character of the soulless Undine? — what more august than the transition into the soul-possessing wife? What can be more purely beautiful than the whole book? Fictitious literature has nothing superior, in loftiness of conception, or in felicity of execution, to those final passages which embody the uplifting of the stone from the fount by the order of Bertalda — the silent and sorrowful re-advent of Undine — and the rapturous death of Sir Huldbrand in the embraces of his spiritual wife. ————— These twelve Letters(1) are occupied, in part, with minute details of such atrocities on the part of the British, during their sojourn in Charleston, as the quizzing of Mrs. Wilkinson and the pilfering of her shoe-buckles — the remainder being made up of the indignant comments of Mrs. Wilkinson herself. It is very true, as the Preface assures us, that “few records exist of American women either before or during the war of the Revolution, and that those perpetuated by History want the charm of personal narration,” — but then we are well delivered from such charms of personal narration as we find here. The only supposable merit in the compilation is that dogged air of truth with which the fair authoress relates the lamentable story of her misadventures. I look in vain for that “useful information” about which I have heard — unless, indeed, it is in the passage where we are told that the letter-writer “was a young and beautiful widow; that her hand-writing is clear and feminine; and that the letters were copied by herself into a blank quarto book, on which the extravagant sale-price marks one of the features of the times:” — there are other extravagant sale-prices, however, besides that; — it was seventy-five cents that I paid for these “Letters.” Besides, they are silly, and I cannot conceive why Miss Gilman thought the public wished to read them. It is really too bad for her to talk at a body, in this style, about “gathering relics of past history,” and “floating down streams of time.” As for Mrs. Wilkinson, I am really rejoiced that she lost her shoe-buckles. ————— A rather bold and quite unnecessary plagiarism — from a book too well known to promise impunity. “It is now full time to begin to brush away the insects of literature, whether creeping or fluttering, which have too long crawled over and soiled the intellectual ground of this country. It is high time to shake the little sickly stems of many a puny plant, and make its fading flowerets fall.” — “Monthly Register,” — p. 243, — Vol. 2, — N. York, 1807. On the other hand — “I have brushed away the insects of Literature, whether fluttering or creeping; I have shaken the little stems of many a puny plant, and the flowerets have fallen.” — Preface to the “Pursuits of Literature.” ————— Had John Bernouilli lived to have experience of G———'s occiput and sinciput, he would have abandoned, in dismay, his theory of the non-existence of hard bodies. ————— As to this last term (“high-binder”) which is so confidently quoted as modern (“not in use, certainly, before 1819”), I can refute all that is said by referring to a journal in my own possession — “The Weekly Inspector,” for December 17, 1806 — published in New York: “On Christmas Eve, a party of banditti, amounting, it is stated, to forty or fifty members of an association, calling themselves ‘High-Binders,’ assembled in front of St. Peter's Church, in Barclay-street, expecting that the Catholic ritual would be performed with a degree of pomp and splendor which has usually been omitted in this city. These ceremonies, however, not taking place, the High-Binders manifested great displeasure.” In a subsequent number the association are called “High-Binders.” They were Irish. ————— Perhaps Mr. Barrow is right after all, and the dearth of genius in America is owing to the continual teasing of the musquitoes. See “Voyage to Cochin-China.” ————— Mrs. Amelia Welby has all the imagination of Maria del Occidente, with more refined taste; and all the passion of Mrs. Norton, with a nicer ear, and (what is surprising) equal art. Very few American poets are at all comparable with her in the true poetic qualities. As for our poetesses (an absurd but necessary word), none of them approach her. With some modifications, this little poem