Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 by Various

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861

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The spirit of the nation will be shown in its readiness to meet without
shrinking such sacrifice of life as may be demanded in gaining our end.
We must all suffer and rejoice together,--but let there be no unmanly or
unwomanly fear of bloodshed. The deaths of our men from sickness, from
camp epidemics, are what we should fear and prevent; death on the
battle-field we have no right to dread. The men who die in this cause
die well; they could wish for no more honorable end of life.

The honor lost in our recent defeat cannot be regained,--but it is
indeed one of the advantages of defeat to teach men the preciousness of
honor, the necessity of winning and keeping it at any cost. Honor and
duty are but two names for the same thing in war. But the novelty of war
is so great to us, we are so unpractised in it, and we have thought so
little of it heretofore as concerning ourselves, that there is danger
lest we fail at first to appreciate its finer elements, and neglect the
opportunities it affords for the practice of virtues rarely called out
in civil life. The common boast of the South, that there alone was to be
found the chivalry of America, and that among the Southern people was
a higher strain of courage and a keener sense of honor than among the
people of the North, is now to be brought to the test. There is not
need to repeat the commonplaces about bravery and honor. But we and our
soldiers should remember that it is not the mere performance of set work
that is required of them, but the valiant and generous alacrity of noble
minds in deeds of daring and of courtesy. Though the science of war
has in modern times changed the relations and the duties of men on the
battle-field from what they were in the old days of knighthood, yet
there is still room for the display of stainless valor and of manful
virtue. Honor and courage are part of our religion; and the coward or
the man careless of honor in our army of liberty should fall under
heavier shame than ever rested on the disgraced soldier in former times.
The sense of honor is finer than the common sense of the world. It
counts no cost and reckons no sacrifice great. "Then the king wept, and
dried his eyes, and said, 'Your courage had neere hand destroyed you,
for I call it folly knights to abide when they be overmatched.'
'Nay,' said Sir Lancelot and the other, 'for once shamed may never be
recovered.'" The examples of Bayard,--_sans peur et sans reproche_,--of
Sidney, of the heroes of old or recent days, are for our imitation. We
are bound to be no less worthy of praise and remembrance than they. They
did nothing too high for us to imitate. And in their glorious company
we may hope that some of our names may yet be enrolled, to stand as
the inspiring exemplars and the models for coming times. If defeat has
brought us shame, it has brought us also firmer resolve. No man can be
said to know himself, or to have assurance of his force of principle and
character, till he has been tested by the fires of trial in the crucible
of defeat. The same is true of a nation. The test of defeat is the test
of its national worth. Defeat shows whether it deserves success. We may
well be grateful and glad for our defeat of the 21st of July, if we
wrest from it the secrets of our weakness, and are thrown back by it to
the true sources of strength. If it has done its work thoroughly, if we
profit sufficiently by the advantages it has afforded us, we may be well
content that so slight a harm has brought us so great a good. But if
not, then let us be ready for another and another defeat, till our souls
shall be tempered and our forces disciplined for the worthy attainment
of victory. For victory we shall in good time have. There is no need to
fear or be doubtful of the issue. As soon as we deserve it, victory will
be ours; and were we to win it before, it would be but an empty
and barren triumph. All history is but the prophecy of our final
success,--and Milton has put the prophecy into words: "Go on, O Nation,
never to be disunited! Be the praise and the heroic song of all
posterity! Merit this, but seek only virtue, not to extend your limits,
(for what needs to win a fading triumphant laurel out of the tears of
wretched men?) but to settle the pure worship of God in his church, and
justice in the state. Then shall the hardest difficulties smooth out
themselves before thee; envy shall sink to hell, craft and malice be
confounded, whether it be home-bred mischief or outlandish cunning; yea,
other nations will then covet to serve thee, for lordship and victory
are but the pages of justice and virtue. Use thine invincible might to
do worthy and godlike deeds, and then he that seeks to break your union
a cleaving curse be his inheritance to all generations!"

* * * * *

ODE TO HAPPINESS.

I.

Spirit, that rarely comest now,
And only to contrast my gloom,
Like rainbow-feathered birds that bloom
A moment on some autumn bough
Which, with the spurn of their farewell,
Sheds its last leaves,--thou once didst dwell
With me year-long, and make intense
To boyhood's wisely-vacant days
That fleet, but all-sufficing grace
Of trustful inexperience,
While yet the soul transfigured sense,
And thrilled, as with love's first caress,
At life's mere unexpectedness.

II.

Those were thy days, blithe spirit, those
When a June sunshine could fill up
The chalice of a buttercup
With such Falernian juice as flows
No longer,--for the vine is dead
Whence that inspiring drop was shed:
Days when my blood would leap and run,
As full of morning as a breeze,
Or spray tossed up by summer seas
That doubts if it be sea or sun;
Days that flew swiftly, like the band
That in the Grecian games had strife
And passed from eager hand to hand
The onward-dancing torch of life.

III.

Wing-footed! thou abid'st with him
Who asks it not; but he who hath
Watched o'er the waves thy fading path
Shall nevermore on ocean's rim,
At morn or eve, behold returning
Thy high-heaped canvas shoreward yearning!
Thou first reveal'st to us thy face
Turned o'er the shoulder's parting grace,
A moment glimpsed, then seen no more,--
Thou whose swift footsteps we can trace
Away from every mortal door!

IV.

Nymph of the unreturning feet,
How may I woo thee back? But no,
I do thee wrong to call thee so;
'Tis we are changed, not thou art fleet:
The man thy presence feels again
Not in the blood, but in the brain,
Spirit, that lov'st the upper air,
Serene and vaporless and rare,
Such as on mountain-heights we find
And wide-viewed uplands of the mind,
Or such as scorns to coil and sing
Round any but the eagle's wing
Of souls that with long upward beat
Have won an undisturbed retreat,
Where, poised like winged victories,
They mirror in unflinching eyes
The life broad-basking 'neath their feet,--
Man always with his Now at strife,
Pained with first gasps of earthly air,
Then begging Death the last to spare,
Still fearful of the ampler life.

V.

Not unto them dost thou consent
Who, passionless, can lead at ease
A life of unalloyed content,
A life like that of landlocked seas,
That feel no elemental gush
Of tidal forces, no fierce rush
Of storm deep-grasping, scarcely spent
'Twixt continent and continent:
Such quiet souls have never known
Thy truer inspiration, thou
Who lov'st to feel upon thy brow
Spray from the plunging vessel thrown,
Grazing the tusked lee shore, the cliff
That o'er the abrupt gorge holds its breath,
Where the frail hair's-breadth of an If
Is all that sunders life and death:
These, too, are cared for, and round these
Bends her mild crook thy sister Peace;
These in unvexed dependence lie
Each 'neath his space of household sky;
O'er them clouds wander, or the blue
Hangs motionless the whole day through;
Stars rise for them, and moons grow large
And lessen in such tranquil wise
As joys and sorrows do that rise
Within their nature's sheltered marge;
Their hours into each other flit,
Like the leaf-shadows of the vine
And fig-tree under which they sit;
And their still lives to heaven incline
With an unconscious habitude,
Unhistoried as smokes that rise
From happy hearths and sight elude
In kindred blue of morning skies.

VI.

Wayward! when once we feel thy lack,
'Tis worse than vain to tempt thee back!
Yet there is one who seems to be
Thine elder sister, in whose eyes
A faint, far northern light will rise
Sometimes and bring a dream of thee:
She is not that for which youth hoped;
But she hath blessings all her own,
Thoughts pure as lilies newly oped,
And faith to sorrow given alone:
Almost I deem that it is thou
Come back with graver matron brow,
With deepened eyes and bated breath,
Like one who somewhere had met Death.
"But no," she answers, "I am she
Whom the gods love, Tranquillity;
That other whom you seek forlorn.
Half-earthly was; but I am born
Of the immortals, and our race
Have still some sadness in our face:
He wins me late, but keeps me long,
Who, dowered with every gift of passion,
In that fierce flame can forge and fashion
Of sin and self the anchor strong;
Can thence compel the driving force
Of daily life's mechanic course,
Nor less the nobler energies
Of needful toil and culture wise:
Whose soul is worth the tempter's lure,
Who can renounce and yet endure,
To him I come, not lightly wooed,
And won by silent fortitude."

* * * * *

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

_Florence_, July 5th, 1861.

"When some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness faileth suddenly,
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new,--
What hope? what help? what music will undo
That silence to your sense? Not friendship's sigh,--
Not reason's subtle count,--not melody
Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew,--
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales,
Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees
To the clear moon,--nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted,--nor the angels' sweet All-hails,
Met in the smile of God. Nay, none of these!
Speak THOU, availing Christ, and fill this pause!"

Thus sang the Muse of a great woman years ago; and now, alas! she, who,
with constant suffering of her own, was called upon to grieve often for
the loss of near and dear ones, has suddenly gone from among us, "and
silence, against which we dare not cry, aches round us like a strong
disease and new." Her own beautiful words are our words, the world's
words,--and though the tears fall faster and thicker, as we search
for all that is left of her in the noble poems which she bequeaths to
humanity, there follows the sad consolation in feeling assured that she
above all others _felt_ the full value of life, the full value of death,
and was prepared to meet her God humbly, yet joyfully, whenever He
should claim her for His own. Her life was one long, large-souled,
large-hearted prayer for the triumph of Right, Justice, Liberty; and she
who lived for others was

"poet true,
Who died for Beauty, as martyrs do
For Truth,--the ends being scarcely two."

Beauty _was_ truth with her, the wife, mother, and poet, three in one,
and such an earthly trinity as God had never before blessed the world
with.

This day week, at half-past four o'clock in the morning, Mrs. Browning
died. A great invalid from girlhood, owing to an unfortunate accident,
Mrs. Browning's life was a prolonged combat with disease thereby
engendered; and had not God given her extraordinary vitality of spirit,
the frail body could never have borne up against the suffering to which
it was doomed. Probably there never was a greater instance of the power
of genius over the weakness of the flesh. Confined to her room in
the country or city home of her father in England, Elizabeth Barrett
developed into the great artist and scholar.

From her couch went forth those poems which have crowned her as "the
world's greatest poetess"; and on that couch, where she lay almost
speechless at times, and seeing none but those friends dearest and
nearest, the soul-woman struck deep into the roots of Latin and Greek,
and drank of their vital juices. We hold in kindly affection her
learned and blind teacher, Hugh Stuart Boyd, who, she tells us, was
"enthusiastic for the good and the beautiful, and one of the most simple
and upright of human beings." The love of his grateful scholar, when
called upon to mourn the good man's death, embalms his memory among her
Sonnets, where she addresses him as her

"Beloved friend, who, living many years
With sightless eyes raised vainly to the sun,
Didst learn to keep thy patient soul in tune
To visible Nature's elemental cheers!"

Nor did this "steadfast friend" forget his poet-pupil ere he went to
"join the dead":--

"Three gifts the Dying left me,--Aeschylus,
And Gregory Nazianzen, and a clock
Chiming the gradual hours out like a flock
Of stars, whose motion is melodious."

We catch a glimpse of those communings over "our Sophocles the royal,"
"our Aeschylus the thunderous," "our Euripides the human," and "my Plato
the divine one," in her pretty poem of "Wine of Cyprus," addressed to
Mr. Boyd. The woman translates the remembrance of those early lessons
into her heart's verse:--

"And I think of those long mornings
Which my thought goes far to seek,
When, betwixt the folio's turnings,
Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek.
Past the pane, the mountain spreading,
Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise,
While a girlish voice was reading,--
Somewhat low for [Greek: ais] and [Greek: ois]."

These "golden hours" were not without that earnest argument so welcome
to candid minds:--

"For we sometimes gently wrangled,
Very gently, be it said,--
Since our thoughts were disentangled
By no breaking of the thread!
And I charged you with extortions
On the nobler fames of old,--
Ay, and sometimes thought your Persons
Stained the purple they would fold."

What high honor the scholar did her friend and teacher, and how nobly
she could interpret the "rhythmic Greek," let those decide who have read
Mrs. Browning's translations of "Prometheus Bound" and Bion's "Lament
for Adonis."

Imprisoned within the four walls of her room, with books for her world
and large humanity for her thought, the lamp of life burning so low at
times that a feather would be placed on her lips to prove that there was
still breath, Elizabeth Barrett read and wrote, and "heard the nations
praising" her "far off." She loved

"Art for art,
And good for God himself, the essential Good,"

until destiny (a destiny with God in it) brought two poets face to face
and heart to heart. Mind had met mind and recognized its peer previously
to that personal interview which made them one in soul; but it was not
until after an acquaintance of two years that Elizabeth Barrett and
Robert Browning were united in marriage for time and for eternity, a
marriage the like of which can seldom be recorded. What wealth of love
she could give is evidenced in those exquisite sonnets purporting to be
from the Portuguese, the author being too modest to christen them by
their right name, Sonnets from the Heart. None have failed to read the
truth through this slight veil, and to see the woman more than the poet
in such lines as these:--

"I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of heaven for earth with thee!"

We have only to turn to the concluding poem in "Men and Women,"
inscribed to E.B.B., to see how reciprocal was this great love.

From their wedding-day Mrs. Browning seemed to be endowed with new life.
Her health visibly improved, and she was enabled to make excursions in
England prior to her departure for the land of her adoption, Italy,
where she found a second and a dearer home. For nearly fifteen years
Florence and the Brownings have been one in the thoughts of many English
and Americans; and Casa Guidi, which has been immortalized by Mrs.
Browning's genius, will be as dear to the Anglo-Saxon traveller as
Milton's Florentine residence has been heretofore. Those who now pass by
Casa Guidi fancy an additional gloom has settled upon the dark face of
the old palace, and grieve to think that those windows from which
a spirit-face witnessed two Italian revolutions, and those large
mysterious rooms where a spirit-hand translated the great Italian Cause
into burning verse, and pleaded the rights of humanity in "Aurora
Leigh," are hereafter to be the passing homes of the thoughtless or the
unsympathizing.

Those who have known Casa Guidi as it was could hardly enter the loved
rooms now and speak above a whisper. They who have been so favored
can never forget the square anteroom, with its great picture and
piano-forte, at which the boy Browning passed many an hour,--the
little dining-room covered with tapestry, and where hung medallions
of Tennyson, Carlyle, and Robert Browning,--the long room filled with
plaster casts and studies, which was Mr. Browning's retreat,--and,
dearest of all, the large drawing-room, where she always sat. It opens
upon a balcony filled with plants, and looks out upon the old iron-gray
church of Santa Felice. There was something about this room that seemed
to make it a proper and especial haunt for poets. The dark shadows
and subdued light gave it a dreamy look, which was enhanced by the
tapestry-covered walls and the old pictures of saints that looked
out sadly from their carved frames of black wood. Large book-cases,
constructed of specimens of Florentine carving selected by Mr. Browning,
were brimming over with wise-looking books. Tables were covered with
more gayly bound volumes, the gifts of brother authors. Dante's
grave profile, a cast of Keats's face and brow taken after death, a
pen-and-ink sketch of Tennyson, the genial face of John Kenyon, Mrs.
Browning's good friend and relative, little paintings of the boy
Browning, all attracted the eye in turn, and gave rise to a thousand
musings. A quaint mirror, easy-chairs and sofas, and a hundred nothings
that always add an indescribable charm, were all massed in this room.
But the glory of all, and that which sanctified all, was seated in a low
arm-chair near the door. A small table, strewn with writing-materials,
books, and newspapers, was always by her side.

To those who loved Mrs. Browning (and to know her was to love her) she
was singularly attractive. Hers was not the beauty of feature; it was
the loftier beauty of expression. Her slight figure seemed hardly large
enough to contain the great heart that beat so fervently within, and the
soul that expanded more and more as one year gave place to another. It
was difficult to believe that such a fairy hand could pen thoughts of
such ponderous weight, or that such a "still small voice" could utter
them with equal force. But it was Mrs. Browning's face upon which one
loved to gaze,--that face and head which almost lost themselves in the
thick curls of her dark brown hair. That jealous hair could not hide the
broad, fair forehead, "royal with the truth," as smooth as any girl's,
and

"Too large for wreath of modern wont."

Her large brown eyes were beautiful, and were in truth the windows
of her soul. They combined the confidingness of a child with the
poet-passion of heart and of intellect; and in gazing into them it was
easy to read _why_ Mrs. Browning wrote. God's inspiration was her motive
power, and in her eyes was the reflection of this higher light.

"And her smile it seemed half holy,
As if drawn from thoughts more far
Than our common jestings are."

Mrs. Browning's character was wellnigh perfect. Patient in long
suffering, she never spoke of herself, except when the subject was
forced upon her by others, and then with no complaint. She _judged not_,
saving when great principles were imperilled, and then was ready to
sacrifice herself upon the altar of Right. Forgiving as she wished to be
forgiven, none approached her with misgivings, knowing her magnanimity.
She was ever ready to accord sympathy to all, taking an earnest interest
in the most insignificant, and so humble in her greatness that her
friends looked upon her as a divinity among women. Thoughtful in the
smallest things for others, she seemed to give little thought to
herself; and believing in universal goodness, her nature was free from
worldly suspicions. The first to see merit, she was the last to censure
faults, and gave the praise that she _felt_ with a generous hand. No one
so heartily rejoiced at the success of others, no one was so modest in
her own triumphs, which she looked upon more as a favor of which she
was unworthy than as a right due to her. She loved all who offered
her affection, and would solace and advise with any. She watched the
progress of the world with tireless eye and beating heart, and, anxious
for the good of the _whole_ world, scorned to take an insular view
of any political question. With her a political question was a moral
question as well. Mrs. Browning belonged to no particular country; the
world was inscribed upon the banner under which she fought. Wrong was
her enemy; against this she wrestled, in whatever part of the globe it
was to be found.

A noble devotion to and faith in the regeneration of Italy was a
prominent feature in Mrs. Browning's life. To her, Italy was from the
first a living fire, not the bed of dead ashes at which the world was
wont to sneer. Her trust in God and the People was supreme; and when
the Revolution of 1848 kindled the passion of liberty from the Alps to
Sicily, she, in common with many another earnest spirit, believed
that the hour for the fulfilment of her hopes had arrived. Her joyful
enthusiasm at the Tuscan uprising found vent in the "Eureka" which she
sang with so much fervor in Part First of "Casa Guidi Windows."

"But never say 'No more'
To Italy's life! Her memories undismayed
Still argue 'Evermore'; her graves implore
Her future to be strong and not afraid;
Her very statues send their looks before."

And even she was ready to believe that a Pope _might_ be a reformer.

"Feet, knees, and sinews, energies divine,
Were never yet too much for men who ran
In such hard ways as must be this of thine,
Deliverer whom we seek, whoe'er thou art,
Pope, prince, or peasant! If, indeed, the first,
The noblest therefore! since the heroic heart
Within thee must be great enough to burst
Those trammels buckling to the baser part
Thy saintly peers in Rome, who crossed and cursed
With the same finger."

The Second Part of "Casa Guidi Windows" is a sad sequel to the First,
but Mrs. Browning does not deride. She bows before the inevitable, but
is firm in her belief of a future living Italy.

"In the name of Italy
Meantime her patriot dead have benison;
They only have done well;--and what they did
Being perfect, it shall triumph. Let them slumber!"

Her short-lived credence in the good faith of Popes was buried with much
bitterness of heart:--

"And peradventure other eyes may see,
From Casa Guidi windows, what is done
Or undone. Whatsoever deeds they be,
Pope Pius will be glorified in none."

It is a matter of great thankfulness that God permitted Mrs. Browning to
witness the second Italian revolution before claiming her for heaven. No
patriot Italian, of whatever high degree, gave greater sympathy to the
aspirations of 1859 than Mrs. Browning, an echo of which the world has
read in her "Poems before Congress" and still later contributions to the
New York "Independent." Great was the moral courage of this frail woman
to publish the "Poems before Congress" at a time when England was most
suspicious of Napoleon. Greater were her convictions, when she abased
England and exalted France for the cold neutrality of the one and the
generous aid of the other in this war of Italian independence. Bravely
did she bear up against the angry criticism excited by such anti-English
sentiment. Strong in her right, Mrs. Browning was willing to brave the
storm, confident that truth would prevail in the end. Apart from certain
_tours de force_ in rhythm, there is much that is grand and as much that
is beautiful in these Poems, while there is the stamp of _power_ upon
every page. It is felt that a great soul is in earnest about vital
principles, and earnestness of itself is a giant as rare as forcible.
Though there are few now who look upon Napoleon as

"Larger so much by the heart"

than others "who have governed and led," there are many who acknowledge
him to be

"Larger so much by the head,"

and regard him as she did,--Italy's best friend in the hour of need. Her
disciples are increasing, and soon "Napoleon III. in Italy" will be read
with the admiration which it deserves.

Beautiful in its pathos is the poem of "A Court Lady," and there are few
satires more biting than "An August Voice," which, as an interpretation
of the Napoleonic words, is perfect. Nor did she fail to vindicate the
Peace of Villafranca:--

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