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unfavorable to Mrs. C. We are sure few possess her warmth of heart-feeling; it pulsates heavily through her pages; we know it must beam in her looks. Still, once more, we put it to her candidly, do these romantic sneers at the hollowness of existing social usage, considered either speculatively or practically, prove either helps or helpers? If so, which way, and who are the helped? Are the sufferers helped, one or all; counted few or many? Nay, consider a moment; reckon all the sufferers you will-hundreds or thousands are such sentiments like manna to the fasting descendants of Abraham? -are they words to bring down manna? Does she even propose any system-digested or not-for better usage? Has she in her moments of nearest commune with Infinity, whether ascending by the steps of music, or sympathy, or making the petals of forget-me-nots the ladderrounds for celestial pilgrimages-has she ever contrived a probable scheme for that "Living by Love" which the goldwrought vases over the head of the outcast woman so prettily suggested? If, even now, men and women were to call together, for the government by Love, with the which society should make no criminals-criminals no crimes-trust induce honesty--sympathy breed universal love-riches be magnified, and yet scattered-old formularies discarded -laws abrogated-prisons be transmuted into blooming conservatories for crabcactuses-alas, would not our philanthropist be weak to marshal the movement, or even to act as third-rate committeewoman in directing issues? There might be those, and she among them, to cry, even with brazen-mouthed trumpets, or golden wrought ones, (for such matters would be common under the rule of Love,) have faith-grow strong in soul-be steadfast--have love; but who shall tell us what new state of things would make more listeners, or more quiet for listening, than now?

"Virtue could see to do what virtue would, By her own radiant light, though sun and

moon

Were in the great sea sunk."

But have we not here an honest disclaimer of all speed and Proteus sort of reasoning: "What is written is written: it did itself. I would gladly have shown more practical good sense, and talked wisely on the spirit of the age, progress of the species, and the like, but I believe

in my soul, fairies keep carnival all the year round in my poor brain; for even when I first wake, I find a magic ring of tinted mushrooms to show where their midnight dance has been." Would to heaven that all who devoured these same tinted mushrooms believed them no sweet vegetable growth, but only diseased fungi from over-imaginative brains! Yet we quote from her without full endorsement: "Thy simplest act, thy most casual word, is cast into the great seed-field of human thought, and will reappear as poisonous weed, or herb medicinal, after a thousand years."

Letter XIV. is somewhat remarkable from the half-dozen very wonderful vagrants it brings to notice. We dare say, without intimate knowledge in the premises, that such, and so many as the news-boy-the two Spanish youngsters and mother-the tired vagabonds sleeping under the trees-the creature draggled all over with mud, and the struggling woman at midnight-of such uniform benignity of aspect-such inner sympathies shadowed in their tearful eyes-never in one day before delighted the most inveterate romancer. Why, Lawrence Sterne-that kind soul whose eyes flowed over at the sight of a spilled bowl, found only one Maria in all France; yet here we have two Marias in a day, and curlyheaded boys, with bright eyes, for prisoned "starlings." And should our lady observer extend her walks till after ten, who can tell how many Rosamond Grays she might find, pleading how tenderly, against the new measures of the new authorities?

We by no means say that faces full of inward pleading, telling of innocence undone, may not sometimes waken a good man's sigh, even in New York streets; but that they may be found by the halfdozen in a walk over the Battery, is too great a reproach upon humanity. Brute sorrows, tears and desires, may be found any day with the looking after; but how unlike to that soul-touchedness of aspect which Mrs. C. so currently reckons on! Unlike as baby tears to those of manhood, or as the dim circles which an occasional mist will throw about the sun, to those glorious and changing ones which to-day (Sept. 7) are twining brilliantly as braided rainbows, and tortuous as a shifting wave, high over head.

We have after the chapter of what we cannot help considering eccentric beggars--an account interesting, and more

full than we remember to have seen elsewhere, of that singular being, Macdonald Clarke :

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A poet comfortably crazy,

As pliant as a weeping-willow;-—
Loves most everybody's girls; an't lazy--
Can write an hundred lines an hour,
With a rackety, whackety, railroad power."

Thus, not inaptly, he described himself. He was born in New London, lost his mother at twelve-slept in Franklin's monument at Philadelphia, “habitually," at one period of his youth-wrote for New York papers in 1819-married an actress, from whom he was forcibly separated by her mother, after a serious ducking at her hands in a rain-water hogshead. "From this time, the wildness of poor Clarke's nature increased, until he came to be generally known by the name of the 'mad poet."" Mrs. Child mingles with these prime facts some romantic touches, after her own way, making his story altogether a very readable one.

Indeed, there are numerous stories, and anecdotes, and curious facts, scattered up and down throughout the volume, interesting enough for a book of much greater pretension; and subtracting somewhat from them, as in courtesy due to her very active fancy, they are very reliable stories, and safe to be read. Such is that about the Polish Jew-the fish and the ring of Captain T. and the Swiss emigrants-of the snake and the swallows. And of places, and histories around New York, are these true daguerreotypes and transcripts, such as we would put into the hands of a fresh country cousin, even in lieu of a pocket map. But our business now is not so much to give a general idea of the book—which, however, we may do incidentally and in all fairness-as to observe such things dropped here and there, as seem to require a note. Thus, having ourselves little confidence in mesmerism, we relished indifferently well the raillery which, in her chapter on that subject, she takes occasion to throw upon those who cavil at the professed attainments of that branch of human speculation; and observed, with some degree of caution, the progress of that raillery-very prettily, daintily, and speciously made out, until her uniform extravagance of expression betrays her. "Nothing can be more unphilosophic," says she, "than the ridicule attached to a belief in mesmerism. Our knowledge is exceedingly imperfect

VOL. 1.-NO. I.

even with regard to the laws of matter; though the world has had the experience of several thousand years to help its investigations. . . . There is something exceedingly arrogant and short-sighted in the pretensions of those who ridicule every thing not capable of being proved to the senses." (p. 119.)

How is this? It appears to us on the contrary the part of a rational man to receive with exceeding distrust, and of a merry man even to ridicule the pretensions of those who believe without "proof to the senses"-saving only in matters of the soul's connection with futurity. Mrs. Child's error consists in neglecting proper nicety of distinctions. The fact that a phenomenon cannot be understood in its nature or in its relations, in no way invalidates the evidence which may and ought to be presented to the senses, that the phenomenon exists; in fact, acceptance of the phenomenon as real, is virtual acceptance of the evidence-which must come through the senses, and in no other way. Therefore we say again, the rational thinker will very properly hold himself aloof from what is not proven to the senses-in animal magnetism, as in any other branch of inquiry.

We know of electricity scarce any thing but that it exists in two states, which we term negative and positive: the evidence of these is palpable to the senses. But a belief in any one of the theories started to account for its action, being insusceptible of proof to the sense, is not held as good. Just so of mesmerism prove to the senses that certain manipulations will render a lady capable of seeing new sights, and of telling new stories, and we will believe it, understand the phenomena little as we may. But observe how accurate must be the character of evidence to establish premises so unusual. First, there must be evidence to show that the manipulation has connection so intimate as to induce, and alone to induce, the new state: next must be proof that the new state is bona fide a new state-that the mind under treatment is opened to sights previously unseen and unheard of by that mind. It will readily appear that such evidence, from its nature, is hard to come by, and that trust (which is only evidence to the senses taken at second-hand) must be almost unlimited before the circle of testimony is complete. Therefore it is that mesmerism is slow in working out for itself belief in the minds of men; there9

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fore it is that the arrogant will ridicule any extravagant confidence, and that moderate ones they who lack the perfervidum ingenium of our authoress-defer belief; and Mrs. C. must continue to pity, but, we entreat her, not reproach. Carlyle's sharp rebuke," which she quotes with big assurance, will not altogether uphold her. "Thou wilt have no mystery and mysticism? Wilt walk through the world by the sunshine of what thou callest logic? Thou wilt erplain all, account for all, or believe nothing of it? Nay, thou wilt even attempt laughter?" As for mystery and mysticism, we are surely content that they should be, and that they who love them should live by them, and in them-allowing us the passing favor, that while they remain such, we may leave them alone; yea, even preferring, not "boldly," but modestly, "to walk through the world"— i. e., to gain a reputable living, doing what good we may, by the sunshine of what we call logic, rather than the moonshine of what we both call mystery. And as for explaining-with God's help, we will explain what we can; and the much which we cannot explain-so far as it be essential to our living here or hereafterwe will take on what we call faith, and on what you call the inner light; and the much which is not essential we will leave to such as love it better than we. And as for laughter-if in their travails after a laying open of the remaining mysteries, their lovers be decoyed into situations ridiculous enough, yet which they are so delirious as not to see, or so self-willed as not to admit, be assured, we will not only attempt laughter, but laugh out courageously, leaving the world to decide (which they will claim to be a weak judge, but which, for want of other, must sit) which of us are the greater fools.

The subject of spectral illusions, Mrs. C. makes the topic of some remark under the same letters, and adduces an instance or two. To say that there is something very wonderful and incomprehensible about these occurrences, and more especially the kindred and still more strange fact of the occasional fulfilment of dreams, is saying nearly all that can be said. The spectral illusion may indeed, in a measure, be accounted for, by supposing that under a morbid state of the system, a mental conception may be so intense as to leave the impression of real existence. (Observe, that by our very use of the term spectral

illusion, we do not, with Mrs. C., admit, or seem to admit, that a spectre can be any thing else. There is strangeness enough, and unaccountableness enough, philosophically speaking, in an illusion so perfect, as to be taken by a soundminded man for actual existence.) The fulfilment of some dreams may be also in a measure accounted for, by supposing intense thought or anxiety in the individual's mind previous to the dream, and of a nature similar to the actual fulfilment. Thus, a man dreams, being away from home, that a mortgage upon his house will during his absence subject it to a ruinous sale; and he hurries home just in time to prevent the foreclosure. It were very reasonable to suppose in this case, that the mortgage, and the character of the holder, had been with him subject of great thought, and that an occasional absence had rendered him trebly anxious; the dream thus became the natural sequent of previous impressions, and its accidental fulfilment is noised about as an exception to their general issue. The minute concurrence of times in a dream, and its fulfilment, is indeed a matter which cannot be reasoned about; and a disbelief of them on that ground would be ridiculous, it is true; but equally ridiculous would be belief in them without "evidence to the senses" that the dream and fulfilment were real.

But we owe the reader a relief; and here he has it in one of the prettily told yet curious stories that lie profusely over these letters:

herd in the service of a nobleman. From "M. Guzikow was a Polish Jew: a shepearliest childhood, music seemed to pervade his whole being. As he tended his flocks in the loneliness of the fields, he was forever fashioning flutes and reeds from the trees that grew around him. He soon ob. served that the tone of the flute varied ac. cording to the wood he used; by degrees he came to know every tree by its sound; and the forest stood round him a silent oratorio. The skill with which he played on his mys tic flutes attracted attention. The nobility invited him to their houses, and he became a favorite of fortune. Men never grew weary of hearing him. But soon it was perceived that he was pouring forth the fountains of his life in song. Physicians said he must abjure the flute, or die. It was a dreadful sacrifice: for music to him was life. His old familiarity with tones of the forest came to his aid. He took four round sticks of wood, and bound them closely together with bands of straw; across

these he arranged numerous pieces of round, smooth wood of different kinds. They were arranged irregularly to the eye, though harmoniously to the ear; for some jutted beyond the straw-bound foundation at one end, and some at the other, in and out, in apparent confusion. The whole was lashed together with twine, as men would fasten a raft. This was laid on a common table, and struck with two small ebony sticks. Rude as the instrument appeared, Guzikow brought from it such rich and liquid melody, that it seemed to take the heart of man on its wings, and bear it aloft to the throne of God.

"He was heard by a friend of mine at Hamburg. The countenance of the musician was very pale and haggard, and his large dark eyes wildly expressive. He carried his head according to the custom of the Jews; but the small cap of black velvet was not to be distinguished in color from the jet black hair that fell from under it, and flowed over his shoulders in glossy natural ringlets. He wore the costume of his people-an ample robe, that fell about him in graceful folds. From head to feet all was black as his own hair and eyes, relieved only by the burning brilliancy of a diamond on his breast. Before this singularly gifted being stood a common wooden table, on which reposed his rude-looking invention. He touched it with the ebony sticks. At first you heard a sound as of wood: the orchestra rose higher and higher, till it drowned its voice; then gradually subsiding, the wonderful instrument rose above other sounds: clear, warbling, like a night ingale; the orchestra rose higher, like the coming of the breeze: but above them all swelled the sweet tones of the magic instrument, rich, liquid, and strong, like a skylark piercing the heavens!" (pp. 173-5.)

Letter XXIX. contains an account of and reflections upon a visit to Blackwell's Island. It is a long one; it takes up and goes over all the writer's peculiar views relating to crime, and law, and society, yet again. It must have filled, at the least, three close-written sheets; and unless the correspondent to whom were addressed these favors, had more enthusiastic relish for these particular views than nine-tenths of the readers of the printed copy, it could hardly have been run over at one sitting. Society she makes appear the wilful parent of every wrong, and now adds, with some more show of justice, the charge of caprice in judging a wrong, equalled only by its malevolence in seducing to the wrong.

"Every thing," says she, "in school

books, social remarks, domestic conversation, literature, public festivals, legislative proceedings, and popular honors, all teach the young soul that it is noble to retaliate, mean to forgive an insult, and unmanly not to resent a wrong. Animal instincts, instead of being brought into subjection to the higher powers of the soul, are thus cher. ished into more than natural activity. Of three men thus educated, one enters the army, kills a hundred Indians, hangs their scalps on a tree, is made major-general, and considered a fitting candidate for the presidency. The second goes to the southwest to reside; some 'roarer' calls him a rascal -a phrase not misapplied, perhaps, but necessary to be resented; he agrees to settle the question of honor at ten paces-shoots his insulter through the heart, and is hailed by society as a brave man. The third lives in New York; a man enters his office, and, true or untrue, calls him a knave. He fights, kills his adversary, is tried by the laws of the land, and is hung. These three men indulged the same passion, acted from the same motives, and illustrated the same education; yet how different their fate!" (pp. 190-1.)

Now, we venture to say, without further knowledge of these three very extraordinary brothers (which we fancy to be the enormous progeny of Mrs. C.'s extraordinary fancy) than she herself has afforded, that they acted from different motives, illustrated different educations-if, indeed, we may be guided by the simplest and safest possible deduction-and for aught that appears in the premises to the contrary, may have been as unlike as possible in passion. Thus, the major-general (we have known of such) may have had no passion at all, and yet have hung the hundred scalps upon a tree; and as for the motive, it may have been as destitute of passion as of patriotism, or (the thing is possible) as full of the one as of the other. The southwesterner may have had no passion; surely the motive was not passion, which in case of the third brother was the only motive; nor could it by any supposable construction have been the same with his, who directed the movements of an army. And as for education: the first may have had, for aught that appears, the best every way; the second may have had it, lacking only that moral education which gives most perfect moral courage; and the third must have lacked the best part of education-that which teaches subjection of the passions to reason. They may, it is true, have had the

same, but we want "evidence to the senses" before we believe that they illustrate the same. And as to the recompense. Mrs. C. evidently means to direct our especial attention to the New Yorker, and have us feel that he ought not to have been punished. But society, in the cases supposed, may act unjustly only in that of the southwesterner. For the first man may have acted for the urgent necessities of his country, and have deserved her rewards; the second, under a lingering remnant of feudal sentiment, now abandoned by the greater part of christendom, receives honor, when he should be severely punished; the third merely gets his due. This is only other proof of the writer's want of discrimination; a want which-we must say it, for we like her writings-totally unfits her for any serious discussion in which her peculiar prejudices are awakened-we must say it earnestly, since others like her writings as well as ourselves. Prejudice was the word we used; and did it ever occur to Mrs. C., that there can be prejudice so anomalous as to favor new things, just as easily as those old ones, which here and there call out her poutings and sneers? And has it ever occurred to her that she is the actual subject of such prejudice in whatever relates to coercion on the part of law, or its ministers any infringements upon the rights, absolute or relative, of every human being-any doing of violence to the genuine wishes of our natural hearts? It is a glorious failing-yet a womanly failing, and a real failing that sympathy with the oppressed which warps reason to a justification of its claims-which would extend its power by sounding plaintively those notes to which every human heart is made to vibrate more or less distinctly. Take her appeal to the street woman, who complained of the delay to execute a public malefactor"Would she so desire were the criminal her son? She had forgotten," continues the paragraph, "that every criminal is somebody's son." A touching way to close a period; but what does it show? It may show that every criminal is to be pitied, but not at all what Mrs. C. manifestly feels that he is not to be punished to the fulness of the law. Such appeals, which abound in the book, are, if we may use the expression, the fungal growth of an over-sensitive heart-just as some of her previous remarks proved to be the fungi of the brain. Mercy is indeed a

beautiful attribute of justice; but, after all, one only among many. "It," says Sheridan, beautifully speaking of justice, "is in its loveliest attitude when bending to uplift the suppliant at its feet." But if always bending, no longer justice-no longer would it need to be either inquisitive or searching, vigilant or active, commanding or awful. There is this difference between love and duty: that while duty to all, and duty to individuals may have perfect agreement, love to all may sometimes be at disagreement with particular love. Thus duty is higher than love. Does not the writer see that any or all of her sweetly extenuating voices of sympathy plead as strongly for a sufferer under Infinite punishment as under this temporal? "Far from us," said Burke, with something of his usual extravagance, and a great deal of his usual good sense, "be that false, affected, hypocritical candor that is eternally in treaty with crime; that half-virtue, which, like the ambiguous animal that flies about in the twilight of a compromise between day and night, is to a just man's eye an odious and disgusting thing." Thus fretted that greatest of great men at the casual expressions of sympathy for the very questionable culprit, Warren Hastings.

We are glad to afford our readers another relief-a couple of pages and more, which we transcribe from Letter XXX. with pleasure, and with fullest commendation. Surely we have a right to change our topic as violently-as these letters theirs.

"There is a false necessity with which circle that never expands; whose iron never we industriously surround ourselves; a changes to ductile gold. This is the presence of public opinion: the intolerable restraint of conventional forms. Under this despotic influence, men and women check their best impulses, suppress their noblest feelings, conceal their highest thoughts. Each longs for full communion with other souls, but dares not give utterance to its yearnings. What hinders? The fear of what Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Clark will say ; or the frown of some sect; or the anathema of some synod; or the fashion of some

clique; or the laugh of some club; or the Oh, thou foolish soul! Thou art afraid of misrepresentation of some political party. thy neighbor, and knowest not that he is equally afraid of thee. He has bound thy hands, and thou hast fettered his fect. It were wise for both to snap the imaginary bonds, and walk onwards unshackled. If

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