And first, in regard to the writer who has given us his speculations2 on Rail-roads and Air-roads, our correspondent shall have his own way. To the rail-way, we must say, like the courageous3 lord mayor at his first hunting, when told the hare was coming, “Let it come, in Heaven’s name, I am not afraid on ‘t.” Very unlooked for political and social effects of the iron road are fast appearing. It will require an expansion of the police of the old world. When a rail-road train shoots through Europe every day from Brussels to Vienna, from Vienna to Constantinople, it cannot stop every twenty or thirty miles, at a German customhouse, for examination of property and passports. But when our correspondent proceeds to Flying-machines, we have no longer the smallest taper4 light of credible5 information and experience left, and must speak on a priori grounds. Shortly then, we think the population is not yet quite fit for them, and therefore there will be none. Our friend suggests so many inconveniences from piracy6 out of the high air to orchards7 and lone8 houses, and also to other high fliers, and the total inadequacy9 of the present system of defence, that we have not the heart to break the sleep of the good public by the repetition of these details. When children come into the library, we put the inkstand and the watch on the high shelf, until they be a little older; and nature has set the sun and moon in plain sight and use, but laid them on the high shelf, where her roystering boys may not in some mad Saturday afternoon pull them down or burn their fingers. The sea and the iron road are safer toys for such ungrown people; we are not yet ripe to be birds.
In the next place, to fifteen letters on Communities, and the Prospects10 of Culture, and the destinies of the cultivated class, — what answer? Excellent reasons have been shown us why the writers, obviously persons of sincerity11 and of elegance12, should be dissatisfied with the life they lead, and with their company. They have exhausted13 all its benefit, and will not bear it much longer. Excellent reasons they have shown why something better should be tried. They want a friend to whom they can speak and from whom they may hear now and then a reasonable word. They are willing to work, so it be with friends. They do not entertain anything absurd or even difficult. They do not wish to force society into hated reforms, nor to break with society. They do not wish a township, or any large expenditure14, or incorporated association, but simply a concentration of chosen people. By the slightest possible concert persevered15 in through four or five years, they think that a neighborhood might be formed of friends who would provoke each other to the best activity.
They believe that this society would fill up the terrific chasm16 of ennui17, and would give their genius that inspiration which it seems to wait in vain. But ‘the selfishness!’ One of the writers relentingly says, What shall my uncles and aunts do without me? and desires to be distinctly understood not to propose the Indian mode of giving decrepit18 relatives as much of the mud of holy Ganges as they can swallow, and more, but to begin the enterprise of concentration, by concentrating all uncles and aunts in one delightful19 village by themselves! — so heedless is our correspondent of putting all the dough20 into one pan, and all the leaven21 into another. Another objection seems to have occurred to a subtle but ardent22 advocate. Is it, he writes, a too great wilfulness23 and intermeddling with life, — with life, which is better accepted than calculated? Perhaps so; but let us not be too curiously24 good; the Buddhist25 is a practical Necessitarian; the Yankee is not. We do a good many selfish things every day; among them all let us do one thing of enlightened selfishness. It were fit to forbid concert and calculation in this particular, if that were our system, if we were up to the mark of self-denial and faith in our general activity. But to be prudent26 in all the particulars of life, and in this one thing alone religiously forbearing; prudent to secure to ourselves an injurious society, temptations to folly27 and despair, degrading examples and enemies; and only abstinent28 when it is proposed to provide ourselves with guides, examples, lovers! —-
We shall hardly trust ourselves to reply to arguments by which we would too gladly be persuaded. The more discontent, the better we like it. It is not for nothing, we assure ourselves, that our people are busied with these projects of a better social state, and that sincere persons of all parties are demanding somewhat vital and poetic29 of our stagnant30 society. How fantastic and unpresentable soever the theory has hitherto seemed, how swiftly shrinking from the examination of practical men, let us not lose the warning of that most significant dream. How joyfully31 we have felt the admonition of larger natures which despised our aims and pursuits, conscious that a voice out of heaven spoke32 to us in that scorn. But it would be unjust not to remind our younger friends that, whilst this aspiration33 has always made its mark in the lives of men of thought, in vigorous individuals it does not remain a detached object, but is satisfied along with the satisfaction of other aims. To live solitary34 and unexpressed, is painful, — painful in proportion to one’s consciousness of ripeness and equality to the offices of friendship. But herein we are never quite forsaken35 by the Divine Providence36. The loneliest man after twenty years discovers that he stood in a circle of friends, who will then show like a close fraternity held by some masonic tie. But we are impatient of the tedious introductions of Destiny, and a little faithless, and would venture something to accelerate them. One thing is plain, that discontent and the luxury of tears will bring nothing to pass. Regrets and Bohemian castles and aesthetic37 villages are not a very self-helping class of productions, but are the voices of debility. Especially to one importunate38 correspondent we must say, that there is no chance for the aesthetic village. Every one of the villagers has committed his several blunder; his genius was good, his stars consenting, but he was a marplot. And though the recuperative force in every man may be relied on infinitely39, it must be relied on, before it will exert itself. As long as he sleeps in the shade of the present error, the after-nature does not betray its resources. Whilst he dwells in the old sin, he will pay the old fine.
More letters we have on the subject of the position of young men, which accord well enough with what we see and hear. There is an American disease, a paralysis40 of the active faculties41, which falls on young men in this country, as soon as they have finished their college education, which strips them of all manly42 aims and bereaves43 them of animal spirits, so that the noblest youths are in a few years converted into pale Caryatides to uphold the temple of conventions. They are in the state of the young Persians, when “that mighty44 Yezdam prophet” addressed them and said, “Behold45 the signs of evil days are come; there is now no longer any right course of action, nor any self-devotion left among the Iranis.” As soon as they have arrived at this term, there are no employments to satisfy them, they are educated above the work of their times and country, and disdain46 it. Many of the more acute minds pass into a lofty criticism of these things, which only embitters47 their sensibility to the evil, and widens the feeling of hostility48 between them and the citizens at large. From this cause, companies of the best educated young men in the Atlantic states every week take their departure for Europe; for no business that they have in that country, but simply because they shall so be hid from the reproachful eyes of their countrymen, and agreeably entertained for one or two years, with some lurking49 hope, no doubt, that something may turn up to give them a decided50 direction. It is easy to see that this is only a postponement51 of their proper work, with the additional disadvantage of a two years’ vacation. Add that this class is rapidly increasing by the infatuation of the active class, who, whilst they regard these young Athenians with suspicion and dislike, educate their own children in the same courses, and use all possible endeavors to secure to them the same result.
Certainly we are not insensible to this calamity52, as described by the observers or witnessed by ourselves. It is not quite new and peculiar53, though we should not know where to find in literature any record of so much unbalanced intellectuality; such undeniable apprehension54 without talent, so much power without equal applicability, as our young men pretend to. Yet in Theodore Mundt’s (*) account of Frederic Holderlin’s “Hyperion,” we were not a little struck with the following Jeremiad55 of the despair of Germany, whose tone is still so familiar, that we were somewhat mortified56 to find that it was written in 1799.
* Geschichte der Literatur der Gegenwart. 1842. p. 86.
“Then came I to the Germans. I cannot conceive of a people more disjoined than the Germans. Mechanics you shall see, but no man; priests, but no man; thinkers, but no man. Is it not like some battlefield, where hands and arms and all members lie scattered57 about, whilst the life-blood runs away into the sand? Let every man mind his own, you say, and I say the same. Only let him mind it with all his heart, and not with this cold study, literally58, hypocritically to appear that which he passes for, but in good earnest, and in all love, let him be that which he is; then there is a soul in his deed. And is he driven into a circumstance where the spirit must not live, let him thrust it from him with scorn, and learn to dig and plough. There is nothing holy which is not desecrated59, which is not degraded to a mean end among this people. It is heartrending to see your poet, your artist, and all who still revere60 genius, who love and foster the Beautiful. The Good! They live in the world as strangers in their own house; they are like the patient Ulysses whilst he sat in the guise61 of a beggar at his own door, whilst shameless rioters shouted in the hall and ask, who brought the raggamuffin here? Full of love, talent and hope, spring up the darlings of the muse62 among the Germans; come seven years later, and they flit about like ghosts, cold and silent; they are like a soil which an enemy has sown with poison, that it will not bear a blade of grass. On earth all is imperfect! is the old proverb of the German. Aye, but if one should say to these Godforsaken, that with them all is imperfect, only because they leave nothing pure which they do not pollute, nothing holy which they do not defile63 with their fumbling64 hands; that with them nothing prospers65; because the godlike nature which is the root of all prosperity, they do not revere; that with them, truly, life is shallow and anxious and full of discord66, because they despise genius, which brings power and nobleness into manly action, cheerfulness into endurance, and love and brotherhood67 into towns and houses. Where a people honors genius in its artists, there breathes like an atmosphere a universal soul, to which the shy sensibility opens, which melts self-conceit, — all hearts become pious68 and great, and it adds fire to heroes. The home of all men is with such a people, and there will the stranger gladly abide69. But where the divine nature and the artist is crushed, the sweetness of life is gone, and every other planet is better than the earth. Men deteriorate70, folly increases, and a gross mind with it; drunkenness comes with disaster; with the wantonness of the tongue and with the anxiety for a livelihood71, the blessing72 of every year becomes a curse, and all the gods depart.”
The steep antagonism73 between the money-getting and the academic class must be freely admitted, and perhaps is the more violent, that whilst our work is imposed by the soil and the sea, our culture is the tradition of Europe. But we cannot share the desperation of our contemporaries, least of all should we think a preternatural enlargement of the intellect a calamity. A new perception, the smallest new activity given to the perceptive74 power, is a victory won to the living universe from chaos75 and old night, and cheaply bought by any amounts of hard-fare and false social position. The balance of mind and body will redress76 itself fast enough. Superficialness is the real distemper. In all the cases we have ever seen where people were supposed to suffer from too much wit, or as men said, from a blade too sharp for the scabbard, it turned out that they had not wit enough. It may easily happen that we are grown very idle and must go to work, and that the times must be worse before they are better. It is very certain, that speculation1 is no succedaneum for life. What we would know, we must do. As if any taste or imagination could take the place of fidelity77! The old Duty is the old God. And we may come to this by the rudest teaching. A friend of ours went five years ago to Illinois to buy a farm for his son. Though there were crowds of emigrants79 in the roads, the country was open on both sides, and long intervals80 between hamlets and houses. Now after five years he has just been to visit the young farmer and see how he prospered81, and reports that a miracle has been wrought82. From Massachusetts to Illinois, the land is fenced in and builded over, almost like New England itself, and the proofs of thrifty83 cultivation84 everywhere abound85; — a result not so much owing to the natural increase of population, as to the hard times, which, driving men out of cities and trade, forced them to take off their coats and go to work on the land, which has rewarded them not only with wheat but with habits of labor86. Perhaps the adversities of our commerce have not yet been pushed to the wholesomest degree of severity. Apathies and total want of work and reflection on the imaginative character of American life, &c. &c., are like seasickness87, which never will obtain any sympathy, if there is a woodpile in the yard, or an unweeded patch in the garden; not to mention the graver absurdity88 of a youth of noble aims, who can find no field for his energies, whilst the colossal89 wrongs of the Indian, of the Negro, of the emigrant78, remain unmitigated, and the religious, civil, and judicial90 forms of the country are confessedly effete91 and offensive. We must refer our clients back to themselves, believing that every man knows in his heart the cure for the disease he so ostentatiously bewails.
As far as our correspondents have entangled92 their private griefs with the cause of American Literature, we counsel them to disengage themselves as fast as possible. In Cambridge orations93, and elsewhere, there is much inquiry94 for that great absentee American Literature. What can have become of it? The least said is best. A literature is no man’s private concern, but a secular95 and generic96 result, and is the affair of a power which works by a prodigality97 of life and force very dismaying to behold, — the race never dying, the individual never spared, and every trait of beauty purchased by hecatombs of private tragedy. The pruning98 in the wild gardens of nature is never forborne. Many of the best must die of consumption, many of despair, and many be stupid and insane, before the one great and fortunate life, which they each predicted, can shoot up into a thrifty and beneficent existence.
But passing to a letter which is a generous and a just tribute to Bettina von Arnim, we have it in our power to furnish our correspondent and all sympathizing readers with a sketch99, (*) though plainly from no very friendly hand, of the new work of that eminent100 lady, who in the silence of Tieck and Schelling, seems to hold a monopoly of genius in Germany.
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1
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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taper
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| n.小蜡烛，尖细，渐弱；adj.尖细的；v.逐渐变小 | |
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credible
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| adj.可信任的，可靠的 | |
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piracy
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| n.海盗行为，剽窃，著作权侵害 | |
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orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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lone
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| adj.孤寂的，单独的；唯一的 | |
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inadequacy
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| n.无法胜任，信心不足 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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expenditure
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| n.(时间、劳力、金钱等)支出；使用，消耗 | |
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persevered
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| v.坚忍，坚持( persevere的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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chasm
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| n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突 | |
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ennui
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| n.怠倦，无聊 | |
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decrepit
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| adj.衰老的，破旧的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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dough
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| n.生面团；钱，现款 | |
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leaven
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| v.使发酵；n.酵母；影响 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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wilfulness
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| 任性；倔强 | |
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curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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Buddhist
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| adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒 | |
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prudent
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| adj.谨慎的，有远见的，精打细算的 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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abstinent
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| adj.饮食有度的，有节制的，禁欲的；n.禁欲者 | |
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poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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stagnant
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| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
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joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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aspiration
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| n.志向，志趣抱负；渴望；(语)送气音；吸出 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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importunate
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| adj.强求的；纠缠不休的 | |
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infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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bereaves
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| v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的第三人称单数 )；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物） | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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disdain
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| n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑 | |
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embitters
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的第三人称单数 ) | |
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hostility
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| n.敌对，敌意；抵制［pl.］交战，战争 | |
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lurking
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| 潜在 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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postponement
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| n.推迟 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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jeremiad
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| n.悲欢；悲诉 | |
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mortified
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| v.使受辱( mortify的过去式和过去分词 )；伤害（人的感情）；克制；抑制（肉体、情感等） | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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desecrated
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| 毁坏或亵渎( desecrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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revere
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| vt.尊崇，崇敬，敬畏 | |
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guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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defile
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| v.弄污，弄脏；n.(山间)小道 | |
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fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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prospers
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| v.成功，兴旺( prosper的第三人称单数 ) | |
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discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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brotherhood
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| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
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pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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deteriorate
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| v.变坏；恶化；退化 | |
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livelihood
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| n.生计，谋生之道 | |
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blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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perceptive
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| adj.知觉的，有洞察力的，感知的 | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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redress
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| n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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emigrant
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| adj.移居的，移民的；n.移居外国的人，移民 | |
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emigrants
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| n.（从本国移往他国的）移民( emigrant的名词复数 ) | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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prospered
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| 成功，兴旺( prosper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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thrifty
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| adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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seasickness
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| n.晕船 | |
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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judicial
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| adj.司法的，法庭的，审判的，明断的，公正的 | |
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effete
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| adj.无生产力的，虚弱的 | |
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entangled
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| adj.卷入的；陷入的；被缠住的；缠在一起的v.使某人（某物/自己）缠绕，纠缠于（某物中），使某人（自己）陷入（困难或复杂的环境中）( entangle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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orations
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| n.（正式仪式中的）演说，演讲( oration的名词复数 ) | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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generic
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| adj.一般的，普通的，共有的 | |
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prodigality
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| n.浪费，挥霍 | |
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pruning
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| n.修枝，剪枝，修剪v.修剪（树木等）( prune的现在分词 )；精简某事物，除去某事物多余的部分 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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