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etiquette may refine the manners, but the "heart of courtesy" which, through the world, stamps the natural gentleman, can never be attained but through instinet; and, in the same manner, those enriching and noble sentiments which are the most beautiful and endearing of human qualities, no process of mental training will create. To what end is society, popular education, churches, and all the machinery of culture, if no living truth is elicited which fertilizes as well as enlightens? Shakspere undoubtedly owed his marvellous insight into the human soul to his profound sympathy with He might have conned whole libraries on the philosophy of the passions; he might have coldly observed facts for years, and never have conceived of jealousy like Othello's, the remorse of Macbeth, or love like that of Juliet. When the native sentiments are once interested, new facts spring to light. It was under the excitement of wonder and love that Byron, tossed on the lake of Geneva, thought that "Jura answered from her misty shroud," responsive to the thunder of the Alps. With no eye of mere curiosity did Bryant follow the lonely flight of the water-fowl.

man.

Veneration prompted the inquiry,

"Whither 'midst falling dew While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?”

Sometimes, in musing upon genius in its simpler manifestations, it seems as if the great act of human culture consisted chiefly in preserving the glow and freshness of the heart. It is certain that, in proportion as its merely mental strength and attainment take the place of natural sentiment, in proportion as we acquire the habit of receiving all impressions through the reason, the teachings of nature grow indistinct and cold, however it may be with those of books. That this is the tendency of the New England philosophy of life and education, I think can scarcely be disputed. I have remarked that some of our most intelligent men speak of mastering a subject, or comprehending a book, of settling a question, as if those processes involved the whole idea of human cultivation. The reverse of all this is chiefly desirable. It is when we are overcome, and the pride of intellect vanquished before the truth of nature, when, instead of coming to a logical decision, we are led to bow in profound reverence before the mysteries of life, when we are led back to childhood, or up to God, by some powerful revelation of the sage or minstrel, it is then our natures grow. To this end is all art. Exquisite vocalism, beautiful statuary and painting, and all true

literature, have not for their great object to employ the ingenuity of prying critics, or furnish the world with a set of new ideas, but to move the whole nature by the perfec tion and truthfulness of their appeal. There is a certain atmosphere exhaled from the inspired page of genius which gives vitality to the sentiments and through these quickens the mental powers. And this is the chief good of books. Were it otherwise, those of us who have bad memories might despair of advancement. I have heard educated New Englanders boast of the quantity of poetry they have read in a given time, as if rich fancies and elevated thoughts are to be despatched as are beefsteaks on board our steamboats. Newspapers are estimated by their number of square feet, as if this had anything to do with the quality of their contents. Journeys of pleasure are frequently deemed delightful in proportion to their rapidity, without reference to the new scenery or society they bring into view. Social gatherings are not seldom accounted brilliant in the same degree that they are crowded. Such would not be the case, if what the phrenologists call the effective powers were enough considered; if the whole soul, instead of the "meddling intellect" alone, was freely developed; if we realized the truth thus expressed by a powerful writer:"Within the entire circle of our intellectual constitution, we value nothing but emotion; it is not the powers, but the fruit of those powers, in so much feeling of a lofty kind as they will yield."

One of the most obvious consequences of these traits appears in social intercourse. Foreigners have ridiculed certain external habits of Americans, but these were always confined to the few, and where most prevalent have yielded readily to censure. There are incongruities of manners still more objectionable, because the direct exponents of character, and resulting from the philosophy of life. Delicacy and self-respect are the fruits not so much of intellect as of sensibility. We are considerate towards others in proportion as our own consciousness gives us insight. The sympathies are the best teachers of politeness; and these are ever blunted by an exclusive reliance on percep tion. Nothing is more common than to find educated New Englanders unconsciously invading the privacy of others, to indulge their idle curiosity, or giving a personal turn to conversation, in a way that outrages all moral refinement. This is observable in society professedly intellectual. It is scarcely deemed rude to allude to one's personal appearance, health, dress, circumstances, or even most sacred feelings, although neither intimacy nor confidence lends the slightest

HENRY THEODORE TUCKERMAN.

authority to the proceeding. Such violation of what is due to others is more frequently met with among the cultivated of this than any other country. It is comparatively rare here to encounter a natural gentleman. A New England philosopher, in a recent work [Emerson's Essays, Second Series], betrays no little fear of excess of fellowship. In the region he inhabits there is ground for the apprehension. No standard of manners will correct the evil. The peasantry of Southern Europe, and the most ignorant Irishwoman, often excel educated New Englanders in genuine courtesy. Their richer feelings teach them how to deal with others. Reverence and tenderness (not self-possession and intelligence) are the hallowed avenues through which alone true souls come together. The cool satisfaction with which character is analyzed and defined in New England is an evidence of the superficial test which observation alone affords. A Yankee dreams not of the world which is revealed only through sentiment. Men, and especially women, shrink from unfolding the depths of their natures to the cold and prying gaze which aims to explore them only as an intellectual diversion. It is the most presumptuous thing in the world for an unadulterated New Englander, however 'cute and studious, to pretend to know another human being, if nobly endowed; for he is the last person to elicit latent and cherished emotions. He may read mental capacities and detect moral tendencies, but no familiarity will unveil the inner temple; only in the vestibule will his prying step be endured.

Another effect of this exaggerated estimate of intellect is, that talent and character are often regarded as identical. This is a fatal but very prevalent error. A gift of mind, let it ever be remembered, is not a grace of soul. Training, or native skill, will enable any one to excel in the machinery of expression. The phrase-artistical, whether in reference to statuary, painting, literature, or manners, implies only aptitude and dexterity. Who is not aware, for instance, of the vast difference between a merely scientific knowledge of music, and that enlistment of the sympathies in the heart which makes it the eloquent medium of passion, sentiment, and truth? And in literature, how often do we find the most delicate perception of beauty in the writer, combined with a total want of genuine refinement in the man! Art is essentially imitative; and its value, as illustrative of character, depends not upon the mental endowments, but upon the moral integrity of the artist. The idea of talent is associated more or less with the idea of success: and on this account the lucrative creed of the New Englander recog

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nizes it with indiscriminate admiration; but there is a whole armory of weapons in the human bosom of more celestial temper. is a nobler and a happier thing to be capable of self-devotion, loyalty, and generous sympathies, to cherish a quick sense of honour, and to find absolute comfort only in being lost in another, than to have an eye for colour, whereby the rainbow can be transferred to canvas, or a felicity of diction that can embalm the truest pictures in immortal numbers. Not only or chiefly in what he does resides the significance of a human being. His field of action and the availability of his powers depend upon health, education, self-reliance, position, and a thousand other agencies; what he is results from the instincts of his soul, and for these alone he is truly to be loved. It is observable among New Englanders, that an individual's qualities are less frequently referred to as a test of character than his performances. It is very common for them to sacrifice social and private to public character, friendship to fame, sympathy to opinion, love to ambition, and sentiment to propriety. There is an obvious disposition among them to appraise men and women at their market rather than their intrinsic value. A lucky speculation, a profitable invention, a salable book, an effective rhetorical effort, or a sagacious political ruse-some fact, which proves at best only adroitness and good fortune-is deemed the best escutcheon to lend dignity to life, or hang as a lasting memorial upon the tomb. Those more intimate revelations and ministries which deal with the inmost gifts of mind and warmest emotions of the heart, and through which alone love and truth are realized, are but seldom dreamt of in their philosophy.

There is yet another principle which seems to me but faintly recognized in the New England philosophy of life, however it may be occasionally cultivated as a department of literature; and yet it is one which we should deem essentially dear to man, a glor; ous endowment, a crowning grace of human ity. It is that principle through which we commune with all that is lovely and grand in the universe, which mellows the pictures of memory into pensive beauty, and irradi ates the visions of hope with unearthly brightness; which elevates our social experience by the glow of fancy, and exhibits scenes of perfection to the soul that the senses can never realize. It is the poetical principle. If this precious gift could be wholly annihilated amid the commonplace and the actual, we should lose the interest of life. The dull routine of daily experience, the tame reality of things, would weigh like a heavy and permanent cloud upon our

hearts. But the office of this divine spirit is to throw a redeeming grace around the objects and the scenes of being. It is the breeze that lifts the weeds on the highway of time, and brings to view the violets beneath. It is the holy water which, sprinkled on the mosaic pavement of life, makes vivid its brilliant tints. It is the mystic harp upon whose strings the confused murmur of toil, gladness, and grief loses itself in music. But it performs a yet higher function than that of consolation. It is through the poetical principle that we form images of excellence, a notion of progress that quickens every other faculty to rich endeavour. All great men are so, chiefly through unceasing effort to realize in action, or embody in art. sentiments of deep interest or ideas of beauty. As colours exist in rays of light, so does the ideal in the soul, and life is the mighty prism which refracts it. Shelley maintains that it is only through the imagination that we can overleap the barriers of self, and become identified with the universal and the distant, and, therefore, that this principle is the true fountain of benevolent affections and virtue. I know it is sometimes said that the era of romance has passed; that with the pastoral, classic, and chivalrous periods of the world, the poetic element died out. But this is manifestly a great error. The forms of society have greatly changed, and the methods of poetical development are much modified, but the principle itself is essential to humanity. No! mechanical as is the spirit of the age, and wide as is the empire of utility, as long as the stars appear nightly in the firmament, and golden clouds gather around the departing sun; as long as we can greet the innocent smile of infancy and the gentle eye of woman; as long as this earth is visited by visions of glory and dreams of love and hopes of heaven; while life is encircled by mystery, brightened by affection, and solemnized by death, so long will the poetical spirit be abroad, with its fervent aspirations and deep spells of enchantment. Again, it is often urged that the poetical spirit belongs appropriately to a certain epoch of life, and that its influence naturally ceases with youth. But this can only be the case through self-apostasy. The poetical element was evidently intended to mingle with the whole human experience; not only to glow in the breast of youth, but to dignify the thought of manhood, and make venerable the aspect of age. Its purpose clearly is to relieve the sternness of necessity, to lighten the burden of toil, and throw sacredness and hope even around suffering, -as the old painters were wont to depict groups of cherubs above their martyrdoms.

Nor can I believe that the agency of this principle is so confined and temporary as many suppose. It is true our contemplation of the beautiful is of short duration, our flights into the ideal world brief and occasional. We can but bend in passing at the altar of beauty, and pluck a flower hastily by the wayside;-but may there not be an instinct which eagerly appropriates even these transitory associations? May they not be unconsciously absorbed into the essence of our life, and gradually refine and exalt the spirit within us? I cannot think that such rich provision for the poetie sympathies is intended for any casual or indifferent end. Rather let us believe there is a mystic language in the flowers, and a deep meaning in the stars, that the transparency of the winter air and the long sweetness of summer twilight pass, with imperceptible power, over the soul: rather let us cherish the thought that the absorbing emotions of love, the sweet excitement of adventure, and the impassioned solemnity of grief, with a kind of spiritual chemistry, combine and purify the inward elements into nobler action and more perfect results.

New England Philosophy: An Essay.

HENRY WARD BEECHER, D.D.,

a son of the Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher, was born at Litchfield, Conn., 1813, graduated at Amherst College, 1834, was settled as a Presbyterian minister at Lawrenceburg. Indiana, 1837-39, and at Indianapolis, 1839 to 1847, when he became pastor of the Plymouth Church, in Brooklyn, New York, an organization of Orthodox Congregational believers, which post he still (1879) occupies.

Among his publications are Lectures to Young Men, Bost., 1850; Industry and Idleness, Phila., 1850, 18mo; The Star Papers, New York, 1855, 12mo, Second Series, 1858, 12mo, new edit., 1873, 12mo; Norwood, or Village Life in New England, New York, 1867, 12mo; Pleasant Talk about Fruits, Flowers, and Farming, New York, 12mo; Eyes and Ears, 12mo; Life of Jesus the Christ, vol. i., New York, 4to and Svo. Many volumes of his Sermons, Lectures, Prayers, etc., have been published by others: Life Thoughts, gathered from his Extemporaneous Discourses, by Miss E. D. Proctor and A. Moore, have had a very large sale. Dr. Beecher edited The Plymouth Collection of Hymns and Tunes; was one of the origi nators and a contributor to The Independent newspaper, and contributes to The Christian

HENRY WARD BEECHER.

Union, etc. See Men of Our Times, by Mrs.
H. B. Stowe (Dr. Beecher's sister), Hart-
ford, 1868, 8vo; Fowler's American Pulpit,
New York, 1856, 8vo.

BUYING BOOKS.

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The same longing, the same promises of self-denial. He promises himself to put spurs on both heels of his industry; and then, besides all this, he will somehow get along when the time for payment comes! Ah! this SOMEHOW! That word is as big as a whole world, and is stuffed with all the vagaries and fantasies that Fancy ever bred upon Hope.

And yet, is there not some comfort in buying books to be paid for? We have heard of a sot who wished his neck as long as the worm of a still, that he might so much the longer enjoy the flavour of the draught! Thus, it is a prolonged excitement of purchase, if you feel for six months in a slight doubt whether the book is honestly your own or not. Had you paid down, that

would have been the end of it. There would have been no affectionate and be seeching look of your books at you, every time you saw them, saying, as plain as a book's eyes can say, "Do not let me be taken from you."

How easily one may distinguish a genuine lover of books from the worldly man! With what subdued and yet glowing enthusiasm does he gaze upon the costly front of a thousand embattled volumes! How gently he draws them down, as if they were little children! how tenderly he handles them! He peers at the title-page, at the text, or the notes, with the nicety of a bird examining a flower. He studies the binding: the leather, Russia, English calf, morocco; the lettering, the gilding, the edging, the hinge of the cover! He opens it, and shuts it, he holds it off, and brings it nigh. It suffuses his whole body with bookmagnetism. He walks up and down, in amaze at the mysterious allotments of Providence that gives so much money to men who spend it upon their appetites, and so little to men who would spend it in benevolence, or upon their refined tastes! It is astonishing, too, how one's necessities multiply in the presence of the supply. One never knows how many things it is impossi-". ble to do without till he goes to the housefurnishing stores. One is surprised to perceive, at some bazaar, or fancy and variety store, how many conveniences he needs. He is satisfied that his life must have been utterly inconvenient aforetime. And thus, too, one is inwardly convicted at a bookstore of having lived for years without books which he is now satisfied that one cannot live without!

Then, too, the subtle process by which the man convinces himself that he can afford to buy! No subtle manager or broker ever saw through a maze of financial embarrassments half so quick as a poor book-buyer sees his way clear to pay for what he must have. He promises with himself marvels of retrenchment; he will eat less, or less costly viands, that he may buy more food for the mind. He will take an extra patch, and go on with his raiment another year, and buy books instead of coats. Yea, he will write books, that he may buy books. He will lecture, teach, trade, he will do any honest thing for money to buy books!

Moreover, buying books before you can pay for them promotes caution. You do not feel at liberty to take them home. You are married. Your wife keeps an accountbook. She knows to a penny what you can and what you cannot afford. She has no 'speculation" in her eyes. Plain figures make desperate work with airy "somehows." It is a matter of no small skill and experience to get your books home, and into their proper places, undiscovered. Perhaps the blundering Express brings them to the door just at evening. "What is it, my dear?" she says to you. "Oh! nothing,few books that I cannot do without."

That smile! A true housewife that loves her husband can smile a whole arithmetic at him in one look! Of course she insists, in the kindest way, in sympathizing with you in your literary acquisition. She cuts the string of the bundle (and of your heart), and out comes the whole story. You have bought a complete set of costly English books, full bound in calf, extra gilt. You are caught, and feel very much as if bound in calf yourself, and admirably lettered.

Now, this must not happen frequently. The books must be smuggled home. Let them be sent to some near place. Then, when your wife has a headache, or is out making a call, or has lain down, run the books across the frontier and threshold, The appetite is insatiable. Feeding does hastily undo them, stop only for one loving not satisfy it. It rages by the fuel which is glance as you put them away in the closet, put upon it. As a hungry man eats first or behind other books on the shelf, or on the and pays afterward, so the book-buyer pur- topmost shelf. Clear away the twine and chases, and then works at the debt after-wrapping-paper, and every suspicious cirward. This paying is rather medicinal. It cures for a time. But a relapse takes place.

cumstance. Be very careful not to be too kind. That often brings on detection. Only

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the other day we heard it said, somewhere, "Why, how good you have been, lately! I am really afraid that you have been carrying on mischief secretly." Our heart smote us. It was a fact. That very day we had bought a few books which "we could not do without." After a while, you can bring out one volume, accidentally, and leave it on the table. Why, my dear, what a beautiful book! Where did you borrow it?" You glance over the newspaper, with the quietest tone you can command: "That! oh! that is mine. Have you not seen it before? It has been in the house these two months;" and you rush on with anecdote and incident, and point out the binding, and that peculiar trick of gilding, and everything else you can think of: but it all will not do; you cannot rub out that roguish, arithmetical smile. People may talk about the equality of the sexes! They are not equal. The silent smile of a sensible, loving woman will vanquish ten men. Of course you repent, and in time form a habit of repenting.

Another method, which will be found peculiarly effective, is to make a present of some fine work to your wife. Of course, whether she or you have the name of buying it, it will go into your collection and be yours to all intents and purposes. But it stops remark in the presentation. A wife could not reprove you for so kindly thinking of her. No matter what she suspects, she will say nothing. And then if there are three or four more works which have come home with the gift-book,-they will pass, through the favour of the other.

These are pleasures denied to wealth and old bachelors. Indeed, one cannot imagine the peculiar pleasure of buying books, if one is rich and stupid. There must be some pleasure, or so many would not do it. But the full flavour, the whole relish of delight. only comes to those who are so poor that they must engineer for every book. They sit down before them, and besiege them. They are captured. Each book has a secret history of ways and means. It reminds you of subtle devices by which you insured and made it yours, in spite of poverty! Star Papers.

FAULTS.

A man has a large emerald, but it is "feathered," and he knows an expert would say, "What a pity that it has such a feather" it will not bring a quarter as much as it otherwise would; and he cannot take any satisfaction in it. A man has a diamond; but there is a flaw in it, and it is not the diamond that he wants. A man has an opal, but it is imperfect; and he is dis

satisfied with it. An opal is covered with little seams, but they must be the right kind of seams. If it has a crack running clear across, it is marred, no matter how large it is, and no matter how wonderful its reflec tions are.

And this man is worried all the time because he knows his opal is imperfect; and it would worry even him if he knew that nobody else noticed it.

So it is in respect to dispositions, and in respect to character at large. Little cracks, little flaws, little featherings in them, take away their exquisitiveness and beauty, and take away that fine finish which makes moral art. How many noble men there are who are diminished, who are almost wasted, in their moral influence! How many men are like the red maple! It is one of the most gorgeous trees, both in spring, blos soming, and in autumn, with its crimson foliage. But it stands knee-deep in swampwater, usually. To get to it, you must wade, or leap from bog to bog, tearing your raiment, and soiling yourself. I see a great many noble men, but they stand in a swamp of faults. They bear fruit that you fain would pluck, but there are briers and thistles and thorns all about it; and to get it you must make your way through all these hindrances.

Plymouth Pulpit, Third Series.

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, LL.D., D.C.L.,

born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1814, graduated at Harvard University, 1831, and subsequently studied about a year in the University of Göttingen; Secretary of Legation at St. Petersburg, 1840, Minister Plenipotentiary to Austria, 1861-67, Ambassador to England, 1869; died 1877.

Morton's Hope, or, The Memoirs of a Provincial, 1839; Merry Mount, a Romance of the Massachusetts Colony, Bost., 1849, 2 vols. in 1, 12mo; The Rise of the Dutch Republic, New York, 1856, 3 vols. 8vo, Lond., 1856, 3 vols. 8vo, Edin., 1859, 2 vols. 12mo, in French, précédée d'une introduction par M. Guizot, Paris, 1859-60, 4 vols. 8vo, also translated into Dutch and German; History of the United Netherlands, from the Death of William the Silent [1584] to the Twelve Years' Truce,-1609, with a Full View of the English-Dutch Struggle against Spain, and of the Origin and Destruction of the Spanish Armada, Lond., 1860-67,4 vols. 8vo, New York, 1861-67, 4 vols. 8vo; Causes of the Civil War in America, Lond., 1861, 8vo; The Life and Death of John of Barneveld, Advocate of Holland, with a View of the

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