An Author's Mind Part 7

AN AFTER-THOUGHT.

It will be quite in keeping with your author's mind, and consistently characteristic of his desultory indoles--(not indolence, pray you, good Anglican, albeit thereunto akin,)--if after having thus formally taken his _conge_ with the help of a Petronius so redoubtable as Chesterfield, he just steps back again to induce you to have another last ramble. Now, the wherefore of this might sentimentally be veiled, were I but little honest, in professed attachment for my amiable reader, as though with Romeo I cried, "Parting in such sweet sorrow, that I could say farewell till it be morrow;" or it might be extenuated cacoethically, as though a new crop of fancies were sprung up already, an after-math rank and wild, before the gladdening shower of commendation has yet freshened-up my brown hay-field: or it might be disguised falsely, as if a parcel of precious MSS. had been lost by penny-postage, or stolen in the purlieus of Shoe-lane; but, instead of all these unworthy subterfuges, the truth shall be told plainly; we are yet too short by a sheet (so hints our publis.h.i.+ng Procrustes) of the marketable volume. Accordingly, whether or not in this booklet your readers.h.i.+p has already found seed sufficient for cyclopaedias, I am free to admit that the expectant b.u.t.ter-man at least has not his legitimate post-octavo allowance of three hundred pages; and to fill this aching void as cleverly and quickly as I can, is my first object in so rapid a return. That honesty is the best policy, deny who dare?

Still it is competent for me to confess worthier objects, (although, in point of their arising, they were secondary,) as further ill.u.s.trative of my '_Author's Mind_' shown in other specimens; for example, a linsey-woolsey tapestry of many colours shall be hung upon the end of this arcade; the last few trees in this poor avenue shall bear the flowers of poetry as well as the fruit of prose; my swan (O, dub it not a goose!) would, like a _prima-donna_, go off this theatre of fancy, singing. And again, suffer me, good friend, to think your charity still willing to be pleased: many weary pages back, I offered you to part with me in peace, if you felt small sympathies with a rambler so whimsical and lawless; surely, having walked together kindly until now, we shall not quarrel at the last.

Empty, however--empty, and rejoicing in its unthoughtful emptiness--have I boasted this my head but a page or two ago; and that boast, for all the critic's sneer, that no one will deny it, shall not be taken from me by renewal of determined meditations; now that my house is swept and garnished, I would not beckon back those old inhabitants. Neither let me heed so lightly of your intellect, as to hope to satisfy its reading with the scanty harvest of a _soil effete_; this license of writing up to measure shall not show me sterile, any more than that emanc.i.p.ation shall, by indulgence of thought, be disenchanted. And now to solve the problem: not to think, for my mind is in a regimen of truancy; not to fail in pleasing, if it be possible, the great world's implacable palate, therefore to eschew dilution of good liquor; and yet to render up in fair array the fitting tale of pages: well, if I may not metaphysically draw upon internal resources, I can at least externally and physically resort to yonder--desk; (drawer would have savoured of the Punic, which Scipio and I blot out with equal hate;) for therein lie _perdus_ divers poeticals I fain would see in print; yea, start not at "poeticals," carp not at the threatening sound, for verily, even as carp--so called from _carpere_, to catch if you can, and the Saxon capp, to cavil, because when caught they don't pay for mastication--even as carp, a muddy fish, difficult to hook, and provocate of hostile criticism, conceals its lack of savour in the flavour of port-wine--even so shall strong prose-sauce be served up with my poor dozen of sonnets: and ye who would uncharitably breathe that they taste stronger of Lethe's mud than of Helicon's sweet water, treat me to a better dish, or carp not at my fis.h.i.+ng.

Imagination, as I need not tell psychologists by this time, is my tyrant; I cannot sleep, nor sit out a sermon, nor remember yesterday, nor read in peace, (how calm in blessed quiet people seem to read!) without the distraction of a thousand fancies: I hold this an infirmity, not an accomplishment; a thing to be conquered, not to be coveted: and still I love it, suffering those chains of gossamer to wind about me, that seductive honey-jar yet again to trap me, like some poor insect; thus then my foolish idolatry heretofore hath hailed

IMAGINATION.

My fond first love, sweet mistress of my mind, Thy beautiful sublimity hath long Charm'd mine affections, and entranced my song, Thou spirit-queen, that sit'st enthroned, enshrined Within this suppliant heart; by day and night My brain is full of thee: ages of dreams, Thoughts of a thousand worlds in visions bright, Fear's dim terrific train, Guilt's midnight schemes, Strange peeping eyes, soft smiling fairy faces, Dark consciousness of fallen angels nigh, Sad converse with the dead, or headlong races Down the straight cliffs, or clinging on a shelf Of brittle shale, or hunted thro' the sky!-- O, G.o.d of mind, I shudder at myself!

Now, friend reader, you have accustomed yourself to think that every thing in rhyme, _i. e._, poetry, as you somewhat scornfully call it, must be false: and I am sorry to be obliged to grant you that a leaning towards plain matter-of-fact, is no wise characteristic of metrical enthusiasts. But believe me for a truth-teller; that sonnet (did you read it?) hints at some fearful verities; and that you may further apprehend this sweet ideal mistress of your author's mind, suffer me to introduce to your acquaintance

IMAGINATION PERSONIFIED.

Dread Monarch-maid, I see thee now before me, Searching my soul with those mysterious eyes, Spell-bound I stand, thy presence stealing o'er me, While all unnerved my trembling spirit dies: Oh, what a world of untold wonder lies Within thy silent lips! how rare a light Of conquer'd joys and ecstasies repress'd Beneath thy dimpled cheek s.h.i.+nes half-confess'd!

In what luxuriant ma.s.ses, glossy bright, Those raven locks fall shadowing thy fair breast!

And, lo! that bursting brow, with gorgeous wings, And vague young forms of beauty coyly hiding In thy crisp curls, like cherubs there abiding-- Charmer, to thee my heart enamour'd springs.

Such, then, and of me so well beloved, is that abstracted Platonism. But verily the fear of imagination would far outbalance any love of it, if crime had peopled for a man that viewless world with spectres, and the Medusa-head of Justice were shaking her snakes in his face. And, by way of a parergon observation, how terrible, most terrible, to the guilty soul must be the solitary silent system now so popular among those cold legislative schemers, who have ground the poor man to starvation, and would hunt the criminal to madness! How false is that political philosophy which seeks to reform character by leaving conscience caged up in loneliness for months, to gnaw into its diseased self, rather than surrounding it with the wholesome counsels of better living minds. It is not often good for man to be alone: and yet in its true season, (parsimoniously used, not prodigally abused,) solitude does fair service, rendering also to the comparatively innocent mind precious pleasures: religion presupposed, and a judgment strong enough of muscle to rein-in the coursers of Imagination's car, I judge it good advice to prescribe for most men an occasional course of

SOLITUDE.

Therefore delight thy soul in solitude, Feeding on peace; if solitude it be To feel that million creatures, fair and good, With gracious influences circle thee; To hear the mind's own music; and to see G.o.d's glorious world with eyes of grat.i.tude, Unwatch'd by vain intruders. Let me shrink From crowds, and prying faces, and the noise Of men and merchandise; far n.o.bler joys Than chill Society's false hand hath given, Attend me when I'm left alone to think.

To think--alone?--Ah, no, not quite alone; Save me from that--cast out from earth and heaven, A friendless, G.o.dless, isolated ONE!

But of these higher metaphysicals, these fancy-bred extravagations, perhaps somewhat too much: you will dub me dreamer, if not proser--or rather, poet, as the more modern reproach. Let us then, by way of clearing our mind at once of these hallucinations, go forth quickly into the fresh green fields, and expatiate with glad hearts on these full-blown glories of

SUMMER.

Warm summer! Yes, the very word is warm; The hum of bees is in it, and the sight Of sunny fountains glancing silver light, And the rejoicing world, and every charm Of happy nature in her hour of love, Fruits, flowers, and flies, in rainbow-glory bright: The smile of G.o.d glows graciously above, And genial earth is grateful; day by day Old faces come again with blossoms gay, Gemming in gladness meadow, garden, grove: Haste with thy harvest, then, my softened heart, Awake thy better hopes of better days, Bring in thy fruits and flowers of thanks and praise, And in creation's paean take thy part.

How different in sterner beauty was the landscape not long since! The energies of universal life prisoned up in temporary obstruction; every black hedge-row tufted with woolly snow, like some Egyptian mother mourning for her children; shrubs and plants fettered up in glittering chains, motionless as those stone-struck feasters before the head of Gorgon; and the dark-green fir-trees swathed in heavy curtains of iridescent whiteness. Contrast is ever pleasurable; therefore we need scarcely apologize for an ice in the dog-days--I mean for this present unseasonable introduction of dead

WINTER.

As some fair statue, white and hard and cold, Smiling in marble, rigid, yet at rest, Or like some gentle child of beauteous mould, Whose placid face and softly swelling breast Are fixed in death, and on them bear imprest His magic seal of peace--so, frozen, lies The loveliness of nature: every tree Stands hung with lace against the clear blue skies; The hills are giant waves of glistering snow; Rare and northern fowl, now strangely tame to see, With ruffling plumage cl.u.s.ter on the bough, And tempt the murderous gun; mouse-like, the wren Hides in the new-cut hedge; and all things now Fear starving Winter more than cruel men.

Ay, "cruel men:" that truest epithet for monarch-man must be the tangent from which my Pegasus shall strike his hoof for the next flight. Who does not writhe while reading details of cruelty, and who would not rejoice to find even there somewhat of

CONSOLATION?

Scholar of Reason, Grace, and Providence, Restrain thy bursting and indignant tears; With tenderest might unerring Wisdom steers Through those mad seas the bark of Innocence.

Doth thy heart burn for vengeance on the deed-- Some barbarous deed wrought out by cruelty On woman, or on famish'd childhood's need, Yea, on these fond dumb dogs--doth thy heart bleed For pity, child of sensibility?

Those tears are gracious, and thy wrath most right Yet patience, patience; there is comfort still; The Judge is just; a world of love and light Remains to counterpoise the load of ill, And the poor victim's cup with angel's food to fill.

For, as my Psycotherion has long ago informed you, I hope there is some sort of heaven yet in reserve for the brute creation: if otherwise, in respect of costermongers' donkeys, Kamskatdales' gaunt starved dogs, the Guacho's horse, spurred deep with three-inch rowels, the angler's worm, Strasburgh geese, and poor footsore curs harnessed to ill-balanced trucks--for all these and many more I, for one, sadly stand in need of consolation. Meanwhile, let us change the subject. After a dose of cruel cogitations, and this corrupting converse with Phalaris and Domitian, what better sweetener of thoughts than an "olive-branch" in the waters of Marah? Spend a moment in the nursery; it is happily fas.h.i.+onable now, as well as pleasurable, to sport awhile with Nature's prettiest playthings; the praises of children are always at the tip of my--pen, that is, tongue, you remember, and often have I told the world, in all the pride of print, of my fond infantile predilections: then let this little Chanson be added to the rest; we will call it

MARGARET.

A song of grat.i.tude and cheerful prayer Still shall go forth my pretty babes to greet, As on life's firmament, serenely fair, Their little stars arise, with aspects sweet Of mild successive radiance: that small pair, Ellen and Mary, having gone before In this affection's welcome, the dear debt Here shall be paid to gentle Margaret: Be thou indeed a pearl--in pureness, more Than beauty, praise, or price; full be thy cup, Mantling with grace, and truth with mercy met, With warm and generous charities flowing o'er; And when the Great King makes his jewels up, s.h.i.+ne forth, child-angel, in His coronet!

And while hovering about this fairy-land of sweet-home scenery, and confessing thankfully to these domestic affections, your author knows one heart at least that will be gladdened, one face that will be brightened by the following

BIRTH-DAY PRAYER.

Mother, dear mother, no unmeaning rhyme, No mere ingenious compliment of words, My heart pours forth at this auspicious time: I know a simple honest prayer affords More music on affection's thrilling cords, More joy, than can be measured or express'd In song most sweet, or eloquence sublime.

Mother, I bless thee! G.o.d doth bless thee too!

In these thy children's children thou _art_ blest, With dear old pleasures springing up anew: And blessings wait upon thee still, my mother!

Blessings to come, this many a happy year; For, losing thee, where could we find another So kind, so true, so tender, and--so dear?

Is it an impertinence--I speak etymologically--to have dropped that sonnet here?--Be it as you will, my Zoilus; let me stand convicted of honesty and love: I ask no higher praise in this than to have pleased my mother.

Penman as I am, have been, and shall be, innumerable letters have grown beneath my goose-quill. Who cannot say the same indeed? For in these patriotic days, for mere country's love and post-office prosperity, every body writes to every body about every thing, or, as oftener happens, about nothing. Nevertheless, I wish some kind pundit would invent a corrosive ink, warranted to consume a letter within a week after it had been read and answered: then should we have fewer of those ephemeral doc.u.ments treasured up in pigeon-holes, and docketed correspondence for possible publication. Not Byron, nor Lamb, nor West, nor Gray, with all their epistolary charms, avail to persuade my prejudice that it is honest to publish a private letter: if written with that view, the author is a hypocrite in his friends.h.i.+ps; if not so, the decent veil of privacy is torn from social life, confidence is rebuked, betrayed, destroyed; and the suspicion of eaves-droppings and casual scribblings to be posthumously printed, makes silence truly wisdom, and grim reserve a virtue. This public appet.i.te for secret information, and, if possible, for hinted scandal--this unhallowed spirit of outward curiosity trespa.s.sing upon the sacred precincts of a man's own circle--is to the real author's mind a thing to be feared, if he is weak--to be circ.u.mspectly watched, if he is wise. Such is the present hunger for this kind of reading, that it would be diffidence, not presumption, in the merest school-boy to dread the future publication of his holiday letters; who knows--I may jump scathless from the Monument, or in these Popish times become excommunicated by special bull, or fly round the world in a balloon, or attain to the authors.h.i.+p of forty volumes, or be half-smothered by a valet-de-place, or get indicted for inveterate Toryism, or any how, I may--notwithstanding all present obscurities that intervene--wake one of these fine mornings, and find myself famous: and what then? The odds at Tattersall's would be twelve to one that sundry busy-bodies, booksellers or otherwise, would sc.r.a.pe together with malice prepense, and keep _cachet_ for future print, a mult.i.tude of careless scrawls that should have been burnt within an hour of the reading. Now, is not this a thing to be exclaimed against? And, utterly improbable on the ground of any merit in themselves as I should judge their publication (but for certain stolidities of the same sort, that often-times have wearied me in print), I choose to let my author's mind here enter its eternal protest against any such treachery regarding private

LETTERS.

Tear, scatter, burn, destroy--but keep them not; I hate, I dread those living witnesses Of varying self, of good or ill forgot, Of altered hopes, and withered kindnesses.

Oh! call not up those shadows of the dead, Those visions of the past, that idly blot The present with regret for blessings fled: This hand that wrote, this ever-teeming head, This flickering heart is full of chance and change; I would not have you watch my weaknesses, Nor how my foolish likings roam and range, Nor how the mushroom friends.h.i.+ps of a day Hastened in hot-bed ripeness to decay, Nor how to mine own self I grow so strange.

So anathema to editors, maranatha to publishers of all such hypothetical post-obits!

Every one can comprehend something of an author's ease, when he sees his ma.n.u.script in print: it is safe; no longer a treasure uninsurable, no longer a locked-up care: it is emanc.i.p.ated, glorified, incapable of real extermination; it has reached a changeless condition; the chrysalis of illegible cacography has burst its bonds, and flies living through the world on the wings of those true Daedali, Faust, and Gutenberg: the transition-state is pa.s.sed: henceforth for his brain-child set free from that nervous slumber, its parent calmly can expect the oblivion of no more than a death-like sleep, if he be not indeed buoyed up with certain hope of immortality. "'Tis pleasant sure to see one's self in print," is the adequate cause for ninety books out of a hundred; and, though zeal might be the ostentatious stalking-horse, my candour shall give no better excuse for the fourteen lines that follow; they require but this preface: a most venerable chapel of old time, picturesque and full of interest, is dropping to decay, within a mile of me; where it is, and whose the fault, are askings improper to be answered: nevertheless, I cast upon the waters this meagre morsel of

APPEAL.

Shame on thee, Christian, cold and covetous one!

The laws (I praise them not for this) declare That ancient, loved, deserted house of prayer As money's worth a layman landlord's own.

Then use it as thine own; thy mansion there Beneath the shadow of this ruinous church Stands new and decorate; thine every shed And barn is neat and proper; I might search Thy comfortable farms, and well despair Of finding dangerous ruin overhead, And damp unwholesome mildew on the walls: Arouse thy better self: restore it; see, Through thy neglect the holy fabric falls!

Fear, lest that crus.h.i.+ng guilt should fall on thee.

I fear much, poor book, this finale of jingling singing will jar upon the public ear; all men must shrink from a lengthy snake with a rattle in its tail: and this ballast a-stern of over-ponderous poetry may chance to swamp so frail a skiff. But I have promised a dozen sonnets in this after-thought Appendix; yea, and I will keep that promise at all mortal hazards, even to the superadded unit proverbial of dispensing Fornarinas. Ten have been told off fairly, and now we come upon the gay court-cards. After so much of villanous political ferment, society returns at length to its every-day routine, heedful of other oratory than harangues from the hustings, and glad of other reading than figurative party-speeches. Yet am I bold to recur, just for a thought or two, to my whilom patriotic hopes and fears: fears indeed came first upon me, but hopes finally out-voted them: briefly, then, begin upon the worst, and endure, with what patience you possess, this creaky stave of bitter