Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

In his Life of Demosthenes, in a passage which is pleasant on account of
its personal reference, Plutarch speaks of the advantage that it would
be for a writer like himself to reside in some city addicted to liberal
arts, and populous, where he might have access to many books, and to
many persons from whom he might gather up such facts as books do not
contain. "But as for me," he says, "I live in a little town, where I am
willing to continue, lest it should grow less." And he goes on to excuse
himself for his imperfect knowledge of the Roman tongue, which unfits
him to draw a comparison between the orations of Demosthenes and of
Cicero. But, although his acquaintance with the structure and powers
of the language may have been insufficient to enable him to venture on
literary criticism, his acquaintance with the books of the Romans was
considerable, and he had thoroughly studied the Greek authors who had
written on Roman affairs. His own library, or the libraries to which he
had access at Chaeronea, must have been well furnished with the books
most important for his studies. He is said to quote two hundred and
fifty authors, some eighty of whom are among those whose works have been
wholly or partly lost. He made careful use of his materials, which were,
of course, more abundant for his Greek than for his Roman narratives.
"If we would put the Lives of Plutarch to a severe test," says Mr. Long,
than whom no one is better qualified to speak with authority upon the
subject, "we must carefully examine his Roman Lives. He says that he
knew Latin imperfectly, and he lived under the Empire, when many of the
educated Romans had but a superficial acquaintance with the earlier
history of their state. We must therefore expect to find him imperfectly
informed on Roman institutions; and we can detect him in some errors.
Yet, on the whole, his Roman Lives do not often convey erroneous
notions; if the detail is incorrect, the general impression is true.
They may be read with profit by those who seek to know something of
Roman affairs, and have not knowledge enough to detect an error. They
probably contain as few mistakes as most biographies which have been
written by a man who is not the countryman of those whose lives he
writes."

Yet, spite of his general accuracy and his impartial temper, the
representations which Plutarch makes of the characters which he
describes are not always to be accepted as fair delineations.
Unconscious prejudice, or misconception of circumstances and relations,
sometimes leads him into apparent injustice. Thus, for example, while he
bears hardly upon Demosthenes, and sets out many of his actions in too
unfavorable lights, he, on the other hand, interprets the conduct and
character of Phocion with manifest indulgence, and presents a flattered
portrait of a man whose death turned popular reproaches into pity, but
was insufficient to redeem the faults of his life.

Mr. Grote, in his History, passes a very different judgment upon these
two men from that to which one would be led by the perusal of Plutarch's
narratives merely. And it is an illustration, at once, of the honesty of
the ancient biographer, and of the ability of the modern historian, that
Mr. Grote should not infrequently derive from Plutarch's own account the
means for correcting his false estimate of the motives and the actions
of those whom he misjudged.

In an excellent passage in his Preface, Mr. Clough remarks that

"Much has been said of Plutarch's inaccuracy; and it cannot be denied
that he is careless about numbers, and occasionally contradicts his own
statements. A greater fault, perhaps, is his passion for anecdote; he
cannot forbear from repeating stories the improbability of which he is
the first to recognize, which, nevertheless, by mere repetition,
leave unjust impressions. He is unfair in this way to Demosthenes and
Pericles,--against the latter of whom, however, he doubtless inherited
the prejudices which Plato handed down to the philosophers.

"It is true, also, that his unhistorical treatment of the subjects
of his biography makes him often unsatisfactory and imperfect in the
portraits he draws. Much, of course, in the public lives of statesmen
can find its only explanation in their political position; and of this
Plutarch often knows and thinks little. So far as the researches of
modern historians have succeeded in really recovering a knowledge of
relations of this sort, so far, undoubtedly, these biographies stand in
need of their correction. Yet, in the uncertainty which must attend all
modern restorations, it is agreeable, and surely also profitable, to
recur to portraits drawn ere new thoughts and views had occupied the
civilized world, without reference to such disputable grounds of
judgment, simply upon the broad principles of the ancient moral code of
right and wrong. .... We have here the faithful record of the historical
tradition of Plutarch's age. This is what, in the second century of
our era, Greeks and Romans loved to believe about their warriors and
statesmen of the past. As a picture, at least, of the best Greek and
Roman moral views and moral judgments, as a presentation of the results
of Greek and Roman moral thought, delivered, not under the pressure
of calamity, but as they existed in ordinary times, and actuated
plain-living people, in country places, in their daily life, Plutarch's
writings are of indisputable value."

Of all the biographies contained in his work, none might excite greater
suspicion of incorrectness than that of Timoleon, on account of the
extraordinary character both of the man and of the incidents of his
career. His story reads like a romance of the ancient times, like a
legend of some half-mythical hero, rather than like the true account of
an actual man. There is, perhaps, none among his Lives which Plutarch
has written with greater spirit, with livelier sympathies, than this.
And yet, in spite of all its seeming improbability, there is little
reason to question its essential truth. It corresponds, with some minor
exceptions, with all that can be ascertained from other ancient authors
who wrote concerning the deliverer of Sicily; and even Mitford, with all
his zeal in the cause of tyrants, can find little to detract from the
praise of Timoleon, or to diminish our confidence in the truth of
Plutarch's account of him.

But, in addition to the interest that belongs to these biographies,
from their intrinsic qualities, as affected by the character of
Plutarch,--beside the interest which the common reader or the student
of biography and history may find in them, they possess a still deeper
interest for the student of human nature, in its various modifications,
under varying influences, and in different ages, from exhibiting to him,
in a long series, many of the chief characters of the heathen world
in such form as fits them for comparison with the prominent men of
Christian times. The question of the effect of Christianity upon the
characters and lives of the leading actors in modern history is not more
important than it is difficult of solution. Plutarch, better than any
other ancient writer, affords the means of estimating the motives, the
principles, the objects, of the men of the old time. We see in his pages
what they were; we see the differences between them and the men of later
days. How far are those differences exhibitions of inferiority or of
superiority? How far do they result from the influence of secondary
causes? how far from the change in religious belief?

No man who knows much of the course of history will venture to insist
greatly on any essential change for the better having been wrought as
yet by Christianity in the manner in which the affairs of the world are
carried on. Christianity has not yet been fairly tried. Nations
calling themselves Christian are still governed on heathen principles.
Christianity has been for the most part perverted and misunderstood. The
grossest errors have been taught in its name, are still taught in its
name. Falsehood has claimed the authority of truth, and its claim has
been granted. The stream which flowed out pure from its source has been
caught in foul cisterns, has been led into narrow channels, has been
made stagnant in desolate pools and wide-spread weedy marshes. The
doctrine of Christ has had thus far in the world but very few hearers
who have understood it. Many a modern creed might well go back to
heathenism for improvement. This perversion of Christianity is a
chief element in the difficulty of tracing the real influence of true
Christian teaching upon character. It is this which compels us to draw
a parallel, not so much between the actual characters of ancient and
modern times, if we would rightly understand the differences between
them, as between what we may assume to be the ideal standards of the
heathen and the Christian. But to treat this subject with the fulness
and in the manner which it deserves would lead us too far from Plutarch,
and we have done enough in suggesting it as matter for reflection to
those who read his Lives.

One of the most marked differences in the position of the ancient and
the modern man is that which has been quietly and gradually brought
about by science; but its effect is little recognized by the mass of men
or the most wide-spread churches. It is the difference of his recognized
relations to the universe. While this earth was supposed to be the
central point and main effort of creation, while the earth itself
was unknown, and all the regions of space were regarded as void and
untenanted, save by the inventions of fancy, man may have seemed to
himself a creature of large proportions and of considerable importance.
He measured himself with the gods and the half-gods, and found himself
not much their inferior. In reading Plutarch, one cannot fail to be
struck with the manly self-reliance of his best men of action. Their
piety had no weakness of self-abasement in it. They possessed a piety
toward themselves as well as toward the gods. Timoleon, who was attended
by the good-fortune that waits on noble character, erected in the house
which the Syracusans bestowed upon him an altar to [Greek: Automatia],
which, as Mr. Clough well remarks, in a note, "is almost equivalent to
Spontaneousness. His successes had come, as it were, of themselves." The
act was an acknowledgment of divine favor, and an assertion at the
same time of his individual independence of action. This spirit of
self-dependence was the grandest feature of Greek and Roman heathenism;
and it is in this, if in anything, that a superiority of character is
manifest in the men of ancient times. The famous passage in Seneca's
tragedy, in which Medea asserts herself as sufficient to stand alone
against the universe, contains its essence and is its complete
expression.

_Nutr._ Spes nulla monstrat rebus adflictis viam.

_Med._ Qui nil potest sperare, desperet nihil.

_Nutr._ Abiere Colchi; conjugis nulla est fides;
Nihilque superest opibus e tantis tibi.

_Med._ Medea superest; hic mare et terras vides,
Ferrumque, et ignes, et deos, et fulmina.
_Medea_, Act ii. 162-167.

Here is self-reliance at its highest point; the strength of resolute
will measuring itself singly and undauntedly against all forces, human
and divine.

But, as a necessary consequent of this spirit, as its implied complement
in the balance of human nature, we find, as a distinct trait in the
lives of many of the manliest ancients, an occasional prevalence of a
spirit of despondency, a recognition of the ultimate weakness of
man when brought by himself face to face with the wall of opposing
circumstance and the resistless force of Fate. Will is strong, but the
powers outside the will are stronger. Manliness may not fail, but man
himself may be broken. Neither the teachings of natural religion, nor
the doctrines of philosophy, nor the support of a sound heart are
sufficient for man in the crisis of uttermost trial. Without something
beyond these, higher than these, without a conscious dependence on
Omnipotence, man must sink at last under the buffets of adverse fortune.
Take the instances of these great men in Plutarch, and look at the end
of their lives. How many of them are simple confessions of defeat!
Themistocles sacrifices to the gods, drinks poison, and dies.
Demosthenes takes poison to save himself from falling into the hands of
his enemies. Cicero proposes to slay himself in the house of Caesar, and
is murdered only through want of resolution to kill himself. Brutus says
to the friend who urges him to fly,--"Yes, we must fly; yet not with
our feet, but with our hands," and falls upon his sword. Cato lies down
calmly at night, reads Plato on the Soul, and then kills himself; while,
after his death, the people of Utica cry out with one voice that he is
"the only free, the only undefeated man." It may be said that even in
suicide these men displayed the manliness of their tempers. True, but it
was the manliness of the deserter who runs the risk of being shot for
the sake of avoiding the risks and fatigues of service in war.[O]

[Footnote O: There is a striking passage in Seneca's treatise _De
Consolatione_, which may, perhaps, be not unfairly regarded as the
expression of a sentiment common among the better heathens in regard to
death,--a sentiment of profound sadness. He says,--"Mors dolorum omnium
solutio est et finis, ultra quam mala nostra non exeunt, quae nos in
illam tranquillitatem, in qua antequam nasceremur jacuimus, reponit."
xix. 4.]

Again, we must be content rather to hint at than to develop the matter
for reflection and study that Plutarch affords, and unwillingly pass by,
without even a glance at them, large domains of thought that lie within
his pages. We are glad to believe, that, through the excellent edition
before us, his Lives will be more widely read than ever. In this
country, where the tendency of things is to the limited, but equal
development of each individual in social and political life, and hence
to the production of a uniform mediocrity of character and of action,
these biographies are of special value, as exhibiting men developed
under circumstances widely contrasted with our own, and who may serve
as standards by which to measure some of our own deficiencies or
advantages. Here were the men who stood head and shoulders above the
others of their times; we see them now, "foreshortened in the tract of
time,"--not as they appeared to their contemporaries, but in something
like their real proportions. But the greatness of those proportions for
the most part remains unchanged. How will it be with our great men two
thousand years hence? Will the numerous "most distinguished men of
America" appear as large then as they do now? Will the speeches of our
popular orators be read then? Will the most famous of our senators be
famous then? Will the ablest of our generals still be gathering laurels?

There is a story told by the learned Andrew Thevet, chief cosmographer
to Henry III., King of France and Poland, to the effect that one
Triumpho of Camarino did most fantastically imagine and persuade himself
that really and truly one day "he was assembled in company with the
Pope, the Emperor, and the several Kings and Princes of Christendom,
(although all that while he was alone in his own chamber by himself,)
where he entered upon, debated, and resolved all the states' affairs of
Christendom; and he verily believed that he was the wisest man of
them all; and so he well might be, of the company." The fantastical
imagination of this Triumpho furnishes a good illustration of the
reality of companionship which one who possesses Plutarch may have in
his own chamber with the greatest and most interesting men of ancient
times. If he be worthy, he may make the best of them his intimates. He
may live with them as his counsellors and his friends. Whether he will
believe that he is "the wisest man of them all" is doubtful; but,
however this may be, he will find himself in their company growing
wiser, stronger, tenderer, and truer.

It has been well said, that "Plutarch's Lives is the book for those who
can nobly think and dare and do."

_The Lost and Found; or Life among the Poor._ By SAMUEL B. HALLIDAY. New
York: Blakeman & Mason. 1859.

It has been asserted--most emphatically by those who have most fairly
tried it--that no house was ever built large enough for two families to
live in decently and comfortably. Yet in this present year of grace,
1859, half a million of men and women--two-thirds of the population of
New York--are compelled, by reason of their own poverty and the avarice
of certain capitalists, to live in what are technically known as
"tenement-houses," or, more pertinently, "barracks,"--hulks of brick,
put up by Shylocks anxious for twenty per cent., and lived in--God knows
how--by from four to ninety-four families each. Of 115,986 families
residing in the city of New York, only 15,990 are able to enjoy the
luxury of an independent home; 14,362 other families live in comparative
comfort, two in a house; 4,416 buildings contain three families each,
and yet do not come under the head of tenements; and the 11,965
dwelling-houses which remain are the homes of 72,386 _families_, being
an average of seven families, or thirty-five souls to each house!

But this is only an average. In the eleventh ward, 113 _rear_ houses
(houses built on the backs of deep lots, and separated only by a narrow
and necessarily dark and filthy court from the front houses, which are
also "barracks,") contain 1,653 families, or nearly 15 families or 70
souls each; 24 others contain 407 families, being an average of 80 souls
to each; and in another ward, 72 such houses contain no less than 19
families or 95 souls each!

This seems shocking. But this is by no means the worst! There are 580
tenement-houses in New York which contain, by actual count, 10,933
families, or about 85 persons each; 193 others, which accommodate 111
persons each; 71 others, which cover 140 each; and, finally, 29--these
must be the most profitable!--which have a total population of no less
than 5,449 souls, or 187 to each house!

That part of Fifth Avenue which holds the chief part of the wealth and
fashion of New York has an extent of about two miles, or, counting both
sides of the street, four miles. These four miles of stately palaces
are occupied by four hundred families; while a single block of
tenement-houses, not two hundred yards out of Fifth Avenue, contains no
less than seven hundred families, or 3,500 souls! Seven such blocks, Mr.
Halliday pertinently remarks, would contain more people than the city of
Hartford, which covers an area of several miles square.

Such astounding facts as these the industrious Buckle of the year 3000,
intent upon a history of our American civilization, will quote to the
croakers of that day as samples of our nineteenth-century barbarism.

"But," some one may object, "if the houses were comfortably arranged,
and land was really scarce, after all, these people were not so badly
off."

The "tenement-house," which is now one of the "institutions" of New
York, stands usually upon a lot 25 by 100 feet, is from four to six
stories high, and is so divided internally as to contain four families
on each floor,--each family eating, drinking, sleeping, cooking,
washing, and fighting in a room eight feet by ten and a bed-room six
feet by ten; unless, indeed,--_which very frequently happens,_ says Mr.
Halliday,--the family renting these two rooms _takes in another family
to board,_ or _sub-lets_ one room to one _or even two_ other families!

But the modern improvements?

One of the largest and most recently built of the New York "barracks"
has apartments for 126 famines. It was built especially for this use.
It stands on a lot 50 by 250 feet, is entered at the sides from alleys
eight feet wide, and, by reason of the vicinity of another barrack of
equal height, the rooms are so darkened that on a cloudy day it is
impossible to read or sew in them without artificial light. It has not
one room which can in any way be thoroughly ventilated. The vaults and
sewers which are to carry off the filth of the 126 families have grated
openings in the alleys, and door-ways in the cellars, through which the
noisome and deadly miasmata penetrate and poison the dank air of the
house and the courts. The water-closets for the whole vast establishment
are a range of stalls without doors, and accessible not only from the
building, but even from the street. Comfort is here out of the
question; common decency has been rendered impossible; and the horrible
brutalities of the passenger-ship are day after day repeated,--but on a
larger scale. And yet this is a fair specimen. And for such hideous and
necessarily demoralizing habitations,--for two rooms, stench,
indecency, and gloom, the poor family pays--and the rich builder
receives--_"thirty-five per cent, annually on the cost of the
apartments!"_

When a city has half a million of inhabitants who _must_ content
themselves with such quarters as these, which, even the beasts of the
field would perish in, does any man wonder that 18,000 women were
arrested in the last year? that in the three months ending January
31st, 1859, 13,765 arrests were made by the city police, of which over
one-third were females, one in six under twenty years of age, and more
than one-half under thirty? that in 1855 there was one death in every
26-1/3 of the population? that in 1858 the five city dispensaries were
called on to treat (gratuitously) 65,442 infant patients? that, in 1855,
1,938 infants were stillborn, and 6,390, or 1 in 99 of the population,
did not live the first year out? while, at the present time, 20,000
children roam the streets, and never enter a schoolroom? With such
homes, is there cause for surprise that husbands murder their wives?
that mothers abuse their children,--and would kill them, too, were they
not profitable little slaves, as Mr. Halliday shows? that men and women
live in drunken stupor upon the spoils of young children,--often not
their own,--sent out to beg, to steal, or do worse yet? that even the
very fag-end of humanity, the sentiment of "honor among thieves,"
perishes here?

For twenty years, Mr. Halliday has labored among these poor creatures,
as the "agent" or missionary of the "American Female Guardian Society
and Home for the Friendless," an association of noble-minded and
unusually practical men and women. If any of our readers fear lest the
fountain of benevolence may dry up within him, we commend Mr. Halliday's
book to his perusal. He will find there some little stories which have a
pathos beyond tears; some facts--happening, mayhap, within ten minutes'
walk of his own fireside--quite as strange as the strangest fiction of
Mr. Cobb or Mr. Emerson Bennett. We have not space left for any account
of Mr. Halliday's labors. His Society provides not only boys and girls,
but even men and women under certain circumstances, with present
assistance and shelter, and afterwards a home and work in the country,
at a distance from the temptations and miseries of the city. It is
curious to read that Mr. Halliday receives frequent orders from various
States--even the most distant West--for "a baby," "a boy," "a little
girl." It is good to know that in that way many bright young souls are
saved from the horrors of "tenement" life, and placed in kind hands;
and it is touching to read, that, while many of these little ones are
remarkable for good looks and bright spirits, all are reported as
singularly quiet, sedate, and submissive. We are glad to know that the
types of the paper published by the Society are set up by the women who
have a refuge in its Home; and we were sorry to read of one boy, who
always ran away from everybody and every place, being at last secured
in the House of Refuge, where, being now nearly eleven years old, the
monster! "he seems dejected, and I have never seen him smile," says Mr.
Halliday. This boy--and a good many others who like the streets and the
free air better than the black-hole of a tenement--should go to sea.
The sea is an honorable trade, (it _used_ to be a profession,) and the
merchants of New York could not do a wiser or a better thing than in
providing a school-ship where such lads could be taught the rudiments
of seamanship and navigation, or, in default of that, sending them as
apprentices in their vessels.

We have two complaints to enter against Mr. Halliday: first, that he
has given his book a title which will deter most sensible people
from opening it; and, second, that in his valuable report on the
tenement-houses, he does not give the names of those enterprising
personages who make thirty-five per cent, at the expense, not only of
their poor tenants, but of every tax-payer in New York.

_The New American Cyclopaedia: a Popular Dictionary of General
Knowledge._ Edited by GEORGE RIPLEY and CHARLES A. DANA. Vol. VI.
Cough--Education. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 772.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20