On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Nov. 8, 1351.] - ®f|l &*&&*?< 1067
-
HERMAN MELVILLE. The Whale; or, Moby Dic...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Carlyle's Life Of Sterling. The Life Of ...
iiTcpttinff forfch its contents : a few extracts Sfafivfof Carlyle are all we shall venture on . lJ 1 No one doubted Carlyle ' pathos , hut somehow n these pa ? es it has a more real , a more homely ! I inexpressibl y charming , and the simple Smn ty o ? the language in which it utters itself S Biblical . Take as a specimen this con' usion of his last interview with his friend : — SWe ? parted before long ; bedtime for invalids , -I rnme- he escorted me down certain carpeted fTstaks and would not be forbidden ; we took £ eund S " he dim skies ; and , alas ! little as I fen dreamt of it , this , so far as I can calculate , must have been the last time I ever saw him in the rid Softly as a common evening , the last of lenings had passed away , and no other would come for me evermore . " Is not the rhythm of that closing sentence heautiful ? Read this : —
•« Here , from this period , is a letter of Sterling ' s , which the glimpses it affords of bright scenes and Lures now sunk , so many of them , sorrowfully to the realm , of shadows , will render interesting to some of mv readers To me on the mere letter , not on its contents alone , there is accidentally a kind of fateful stamp A few months after Qharles Buller ' s death , while his loss was mourned by many hearts , and to his mother all light except what hung upon his
poor memory had gone out in the world , a certain delicate and friendly hand , hoping to give the poor bereaved lady a good moment , sought out this letter of Sterling s one morning , and called with intent to read it to her : alas , the poor lady had herself fallen suddenly into the languors of death , help of another grander sort now close at hand ; and to her this letter was never
read ! " How prettily painted is the picture of the lonely Mother in this sentence : — " Troubled days for the poor mother in that small household on Blackheath , as there are for mothers in so many households in this world ! I have heard that Mrs . Sterling passed much of her time alone at this period . Her husband ' s pursuits , with his
Wellesleys and the like , often carrying him into town and detaining him late there , she would sit among her sleeping children , such of them as death had still spared , perhaps thriftily plying her needle , full of mournful affectionate night thoughts , —apprehensive too , in her tremulous heart , that the head of the house might haye fallen among robbers in his way homeward . "
It has already been hinted how interesting this hook is in glimpses of the biographer ; here is a touch which in after times will be classed with the traits of gentle tenderness in dear old Johnson"the sweetness that Samson found in the Lion ' s mouth , " Leigh Hunt somewhere says of Skakspeare : Sterling , in a postscript , sends a message from his daughter Charlotte about her doll ' s shoes . " As to little Charlotte and her doll , " writes the rugged Ishmael , " I remember well enough and
was more than once reminded this bright litt'e creature , on one of my first visits to Bayswater , had earnestly applied to me to put her doll ' s shoes on for her , which feat was performed . " Mulrcady , Leslie , Frith , Webster , do you want a subject ? Take this of the stern Titan , bending his shaggy hrows and deep and thoughtfully tender eyes over the didieulties of shoeing a doll—the bright little eager creature standing by , watching the philosopher clumsily performing the feat !
Turning to other considerations , let us not forget to note the plain and emphatic language in which ¦ 'it last he speaks out his deep-rooted antagonism to : 'H Established Churches . Much abuse , much hatred , this will probably draw down . Is not the '¦ r imes article an alarum ? To all orthodox minds ( 'iirlyle must now unhesitatingly stand confessed as "" ' of them . Hitherto he has written on religious subjects , us if he hated Cunt and Shams : but
somehow , by the very ambiguity of his language , 1 > " ha . s always seemed to have a Bishop in tow -Now he haH fairly cut cables , and leaves the Bishop to tow himself as he best may . Our readers are t ( ><> much interested in the cause of free utterance , j'ofc to welcome such accession . Not that Carlyle '"• 'is passed over to our camp . We cannot accurately ' Mermino what his religious opinions an ;; but wo < l () not
suppo . se they are such as we hold . In the K'ealer cause , however , in that which transcends all 'wins and formulas , and gives to every creed its ri KbtN of utterance and organization , Carlylo is working by bin powerful denunciations against the y"ike-ber , , c which reigns at the present day . For jj hi U »( , want ot - ( j | 1 ( , . ( . g ,, itjOI 1 of free thought Hat ho much hypocrisy lives ; men pretend to behove v'i ; U they do not believe , because that belief is called Il * lstable . Carlyle exclaims : — ttpoody end to Superstition , —a gontlo one if you 1 c « "tnvo it , but an end . What cimjt profit any
mortal to adopt locutions and imaginations which do not correspond to fact ; which no sane mortal can deliberately adopt in his soul as true ; which the most orthodox of mortals cau only , and this after infinite essentially impious effort to put out the eyes of his mind , persuade himself to believe that he believes' ? Away with it ; in the name of God , come out of it , all true men ! " He speaks of those simple persons " who are afraid of many things and not afraid of hypocrisy , which is the worst and one irremediably bad thing . "
It is a delicate question , no doubt , to settle what you shall believe . All we ask is that you simply hold to what you do believe , and not give that sacred right up to any pretence of belief . " What the light of your mind , " says Carlyle , " which is the direct inspiration of the Almighty , pronounces incrediblethat in God ' s name leave uncredited ; at your peril do not try believing that . " Elsewhere , "To steal into heaven—by the modern method of striking your head into fallacies on earth is for ever forbidden . High treason is the name of that attempt ; and it continues to be punished as such . "
Besides the picture given of John Sterling and his Life , there are two fine portraits—one of Captain Sterling , " an impetuous man , full of real energy , and immensely conscious of the same ; who transacted everything not with the minimum of noise and fuss , but with the maximum , " who as the Thunderer of the Times made himself famous in his day—the other of Coleridge , by far the most graphic portrait that has yet been painted of him , not omitting the real beauty which assuredly there was , and touching gently , though significantly , on the source of his weaknesses .
" Coleridge sat on the brow of Highgate-hill , in those years , looking down on London and its smoketumult like a sage escaped from the inanity of life ' s battle ; attracting towards him the thoughts of innumerable brave souls still engaged there . His express contributions to poetry , philosophy , or any specific province of human literature or enlightenment , had been small and sadly intermittent ; but he had , especially among young inquiring men , " a higher than literary , a kind of prophetic or magician , character . He was thought to hold , —he alone in England , —the key of German and other transcendentalisms ; knew of bthe what
the sublime secret believing y ' reason the understanding ' had been obliged to fling out as incredible ; and could still , after Hume and Voltaire had done their best and worst with him , profess himself an orthodox Christian , and say and point to the Church of England , with its singular old rubrics and surplices at A llh : dlowtidc , Esto pcrpetua . * * * * He distinguished himself to all that ever heard hini as at least the most surprising talker extant in this world , —and to some small minority , by no means to all , the most excellent . The good man , he was now getting old , towards sixty perhaps ; and gave you the idea of a life that had been full of sufferings ; a life heavy-laden , hall-vanquished , still swimming painfully in seas of manifold physical and other
bewilderment . Urow and head were round and of massive weight , but the face was fl . ibby and irresolute . The deep eyes , of a light haz-jl , were as full of sorrow as of inspiration ; confused pain looked mildly from them , as in . a kind of mild astonishment . The whole figure and air , good and amiable otherwise , might be called flabby and irresolute , expressive of weakness under possibility of strengh . A heavyladen , high-aspiring , and surely much-suffering man . His voice , naturally soft and good , bad contracted itself into a plaintive snuflle and sing-song ; he spoke as if preaching , you would have suid , preaching earnestly and also hopelessly the weightiest things . I still recollect his ' object' and ' subject , ' terms of continual recurrence in the Kantenn province ; and
how he sung and snuilled them into ' om-m-mject 4 sum-m-mjeet , ' with a kind of solemn shake or quaver , as he rolled along . No talk , in his century or in any other , could be more surprising . " Sterling , who aBsidiously attended him , with profound reverence , and was often with him by himself for a good many months , gives a record of their first colloquy . Their colloquies were numerous , and he had taken note of many ; but they are all to gone the lire , except this first , which Mr . Hare bus printed , unluckily without date . It contains a number of ingenious , true , and half-true observations , and is , of course , a faithful epitome of the things said ; but
it gives small idea of Colori < lge'n way of talking . This one feature is , perhaps , the most recognisable , — ' Our interview lasted for three hours , during which be talked two hours and three-quarters . " To bit as a piiHsive bucket and be pumped into , whether you consent or not , can in the long-run be exhilarating to no creature—how eloquent soever the Hood of utterance that is descending , / Hut if it be withal a confused , unintelligible 1 lob ( l of utterance , threatening to submerge all known land marks of thought , and drown the world and you ! 1 have heard Coleridge talk , with eager musical energy , two stricken hours , bis faco radiant and inoiHt , and communicate no meaning whatsoever to any individual of his hearers ,
—certain of -whom , I for one , still kept eagerly listening in hope ; the most had long before given up , and formed ( if the room were large enough ) secondary humming groups of their own . •« He had knowledge about many things and topics , —much curious reading ; but generally all topics led him , after a pass or two , into the high seas of theosophic philosophy , the hazy infinitude of Kantean , transcendentalism , with its' sum-m-mjects * and omnx-mjects . ' Sad enough , for with such indolent impatience of the claims and ignorances of others , he had not the least talent for explaining this or anything unknown to them ; and you swam and fluttered
in the mistiest , wide , unintelligible deluge of things , for most part in a rather profitless , uncomfortable manner . Glorious islets , too , I have seen rise out of the haze ; but they were few , and soon swallowed in the general element again . Balmy , sunny islets , islets of the blest and the intelligible ; on which occasions those secondary humming groups would all cease humming , and hang breathless upon the eloquent words , till once your islet got wrapt in the mist again , and they could recommence humming . One right peal of concrete laughter at some convicted flesh and
blood absurdity , one burst of noble indignation at some injustice or depravity rubbing elbows with us on this solid earth , how strange would it have been in that Kantean haze-world , and how infinitely cheering amid its vacant aircastles and dim-melting ghosts and shadows ! None such ever came . His life had been an abstract thinking and dreaming , idealistic one , passed amid the ghosts of defunct bodies and of unborn ones . The mourning sing-song of that theogOphico-metaphysical monotomy left on you , at last , a very dreary feeling . "
From the report of Sterling ' s friends tins Life seems to convey a true and generous notion of what John Sterling was . The world will regard the book as being in itself deeply interesting—one of the most interesting Carlyle has wiittcn .
Nov. 8, 1351.] - ®F|L &*&&*?< 1067
Nov . 8 , 1351 . ] - ® f | l &*&&*?< 1067
Herman Melville. The Whale; Or, Moby Dic...
HERMAN MELVILLE . The Whale ; or , Moby Dick . By Herman Melville , author of Typce , Omoo , & c . 3 vols . Beatlcy . Want of originality has long been the just and standing reproach to American literature ; the best of its writers were but second-hand Englishmen . Of late some have given evidence of originality ; not absolute originality , but such -genuine outcoming of the American intellect as can be safely called national . Edgar Poe , Nathaniel Hawthorne , Herman Melville are assuredly no British offshoots ;
nor is Emerson—the German American that he is The observer of this commencement of an American literature , properly so called , will notice as significant that these writers have a wild and mystic love of the supersensual , peculiarly their own . To move a horror skilfully , wjth something of tlie earnest faith in the Unseen , and with weird imagery to shape these Phantasms so vividly that the most incredulous mind is hushed , absorbed—to do this no European pen has apparently any longer the power—to do this American literature is without a rival . What romance writer can be named with
Hawthorne ? Who knows the terrors of the seas like Herman Melville ? The Whale—Melville ' s last book—is a strange , wild , weird book , full of poetry and full of interest . To use a hackneyed phrase , it is indeed " refreshing " to quit the old , wornout pathways of romance , and feel the sea breezes playing through our hair , the salt spray ( lashing on our brows , as we do here . One tires terribly of ballrooms , dinners , and the incidents of town life ! One never tires of Nature . And there is Nature here , though the daring imagery often grows riotously extravagant .
Then the ghostly terrors which Herman Melville so skilfully evokes , have a strange fascination . In vain Reason rebels . Imagination is absolute . Ordinary superstitions related by vulgar pens have lost their power over all but the credulous ; but Imagination has a credulity of its own respondent to power . So it is with Melville's superstitions : we believe in them imaginatively . And here wo will fako the occasion to introduce the reader to a splendid passage from our greatest prose writer , ( lencriptivo of the superstitious nature of sailors—( yon divine that we are to quote from I ) e Uiiincey ) . " <
says they are all superstitious . " Partly , I suppose , from looking out so much upon the wilderness if waves empty of human lift ;; for mighty solitude * are generally fear-haunted and fear -peopled ; hucIi , for instance , as the solitudes of forests where , in the absence of human forms and ordinary human sounds , are discerned forms more dusky and vague not referred by the eye to any known type , and Hounds imperfectly intelligible Now , the sea is often ix-oplcd amidst its ravings with what seem innumerable human voices , ' ancestral voices prophesying war '; often tirnea laughter mixes from a
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 8, 1851, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_08111851/page/15/
-