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June 21, 1851.] ^^ t VLt&tttt. 587
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AMERICAN ROMANCE. The House of the Seven...
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The First Step Towards Civilization, Whe...
" But farther , it does not appear that Mai thus or any of his followers have given us any test by which we may ascertain , that we are actually suffering under re undancy of population . They point to ¦ wide- spread distress , sometimes in one class , sometimes in another ; but this may evidently arise out of moral , political , commercial causes which have nothing to do with total overpopulation . The only intelligible test of the last is that propounded by iliv . Lawson , viz ., A people is then beginning to press on the limits of its subsistence , when a larger and larger fraction of its entire power is needed to
raise the food of the community . And , tried by this test , we surely never were so far off from being redundant , as we are at this moment . To say nothing of the relief by Emigration and by Importing food , neither of which has at ail come near to its m aximum of service , —if England were the whole world , and we did but cultivate it as sagaciously as our best-farmed , counties , till we had as much food as we could consume , I believe we should still have a larger proportion of hands free from the toil of food raising than in the reign of the 8 th Henry or the 1 st Edward . Our economic disease , therefore , does not consist in too much population ( which means , too
calls himself slaveowner , and pleads that he has purchased the slave , and that the law has pronounced slaves to be chattels . We reply that the law is immoral and unjust , and that no number of immoral sales can destroy the rights of man . All this equally applies to land . The land was not regarded as private property by our old law ; it is not to this day treated by the law on the same footing as movables ; and there are many other persons who have rights in a piece of land , besides him who gets rent from it . The lord of the manor has his dues , but this does not
annihilate the claims of others . For land is not only a surface that pays rent , but a surface to live upon and the law ought to have cared , and ought still to care , for those who need the land for life , as much as for those who have inherited or bought a title to certain fruits from it . " Political Economy , in a country which sanctions Slavery , will talk of slaves as of cattle : and rightly , as regards commercial calculations . So , too , among ourselves , Economists have accepted as fact the
commercial doctrine of land . Their science is not to blame for it ; but some of them , as individuals , are to blame , for having so much sympathy with the rich , and so little with the poor , as not to see the iniquity of such a state of things ; but rather to panegyrize English industry as living under glorious advantages , —where the labourer on the soil has no tenure in it , no direct and visible interest in its profitable culture , no security that he may not be driven off from it , in order to swell the rental of one who calls himself its owner . "
little power of getting enough food for all ) ; but from various clogs and stoppages in the channels of distribution . If there is food for all , yet one person in 100 is either immoral , ill trained , unwise , perverse , or blamelessly unfortunate , so as to miss his food ( and how email a per centage is this !) ; that will make out of our 30 millions as many as 30 , 000 persons hovering between food and starvation . Such a mass of misery , collected in heaps in the chief towns , grievously affects the imagination as though there was more population than we were able to feed ; and leads others to speculate on the necessity of reconstructing Society and abolishing Competition . ' *
His views on Taxation are worthy of studious attention , and we extract the following pertinent statement of a cardinal principle of taxation : — " The State is so far from desiring to press down into starvation those who have only just enough for life , that it supports by Poor Laws those who have less than enough . The moral ground of such laws I shall afterwards open . But as at least the State is not intended as an engine of oppression to the weak , it cannot ( wilfully and knowingly ) tax those families which barely can feed themselves . Hence no taxes
We would willingly quote the whole of the chapter on Land . Mr . Newman thus energetically sums up his arguments : — " In short , it is clear that no man has , or can have a natural right to land , except as long as he occupies it in person . His right is to the use , and to the use only . All other right is the creation of artificial law . " Some persons do not see the enormous distinction between landowners and landholders ; but ' although there is no distinction for good , there is a terrible one for evil , as may be seen in tha case of ejectments . On this subject hear Mr . Newman : —
can be intended to fall on sinews , bone , and breath , as such , but on property , as such . The moment this is conceded , it follows that the more property a man has to spare , the more fit a subject for taxation he is , and the higher the per centage which may justly be taken from his surplus . I cannot understand the tone assumed by some writers on this subject , who call it robbery and spoliation to tax greater wealth at a greater per centage . My belief is , that this is intrinsically just , and that it would tend , moreover , to political stability , by removing the odium attached to great wealth with the vulgar . "
" As far as I am aware , to eject the population in mass is a very modern enormity . We think of it as peculiarly Irish : yet nowhere , perhaps , was it done more boldly , more causelessly , and more heartlessly , than from the Sutherland estates of Northern Scotland , early in this century . Between the years 1811 and 1820 , 15 , 000 persons were driven off the lands of the Marchioness of Stafford , alone ; all their villages were pulled down or burnt , and their fields turned into pasturage . A like process was carried on about the same time by seven or eight neighbouring lords . The human inhabitants were thus ejected , in order thst sheep might take their place ; because some one had persuaded these great landholders that sheep would nay better than human beings !
There are several passages marked for extract which we are forced to omit , but we send our readers to the volume itself with our emphatic commendation .
" This is truly monstrous . It is probable that nothing so shocking could have been done , but for a juggling plea concerning the claims of Political Economy . It is defined as the science of Wealth : rightly . It will not confound itself with Politics : right again . It cannot undertake to define what things are , and what are not , private property : it assumes that Political Law regards the landlord as the landowner , and justifies him in emptying his estates at pleasure . Well : if so , it follows that the rules of mere Economy are no sufficient guide to the conduct of a moral being . If Statesmen . - Parliaments , or Courts of Law , have neglected to define
and establish the rights of those who dwell on and cultivate the soil , the landlord cannot plead that neglect to justify his wrong . ( Jrant that , as an l'lcononiist , I have no right to ask whether land is or is not private property ; yet , as a politician or as a moralist , I may wee that no lord of Sutherland ever could have morall y , or ever ought to have legally , a greater right over his estates than the King or Queen hnd , to whom his ancestor originally did homage lor them . A buron , in bin highest plenitude of power , hits rather le . sa right over tin ? soil , than the King from whom he derived his right : and a king of England might iih well claim to drive all his subjects into the sea , as
»¦ buron to empty bin I'Htutes . We read how William the ( Jnnqueror burnt villages , and ejected the people by hundreds , in order to make a hunting-ground for himself in the New Forest . This deed , which has been execrated by all who relate it , seemed an extveme of tyranny : yet our Courts of Law , and our I ' uvliumuiUB , allow the same thing to be done by smaller tyrants ; and tho public sits by , and mourns to think , that people deal ho unkindly with that which in their oion ! Here is the fundamental error , the crude and monstrous assumption , that the land , which Ood him given to our nation , is or can be the private property of any one . It is a usurpation exactly similar to that of Slavery . The Blavemaster
June 21, 1851.] ^^ T Vlt&Tttt. 587
June 21 , 1851 . ] ^^ VLt & tttt . 587
American Romance. The House Of The Seven...
AMERICAN ROMANCE . The House of the Seven Gables . A Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne . ( Bonn ' s Cheap Series . ) H . G . Bonn . The author of the Scarlet Letter is sure of an audience . Among American writers he deserves special recognition for his originality , not to mention very peculiar powers of romance narrative . In this House of the Seven Gables there is a quaintness , a
athwart its darkness , and a beam of happiness into the lives of its inmates . But we shall not attempt an outline of the story , which is only meant as a canvas for the descriptions and the characters . Get the book for yourself—it is to be had for the veriest trifle—and see how graphically Judge Pyncheon , the corpulent , smiling , respectable rascal—Clifford , the half imbecile sensualist and lover of the beautiful—and Phoebe , the bright lithesome maiden , are all described and set in action ; notice , moreover , the author ' s power of word painting , amidst some exaggeration and " fine writing ; " and his peculiar power of " moving a horror skilfully , " so that he makes romance credible . By way of whet to your appetite read this character of
JUDGE PYNCHEON . " The judge , beyond all question , was a man of eminent respectability . The church acknowledged it ; the state acknowledged it . It was denied by nobody . In all the very extensive sphere of those who knew him , whether in his public or private capacities , there was not an individual—except Hepzibah , and some lawless mystic , like the daguerreo typist , and , possibly , a few political opponents—who would have dreamed of seriously disputing his claim , to a high and honorable place in the world ' s regard . Nor ( we must do him the further justice to say ) did Judge Pyncheon himself , probably , entertain many or frequent doubts
that his enviable reputation accorded with his deserts * His conscience , therefore , usually considered the surest witness to a man ' s integrity , —his conscience , unless it might be for the little space of five minutes in the twenty-four hours , or , now and then , some black day in the whole year ' s circle , —his conscience bore an accordant testimony with the world ' s laudatory voice . And yet , strong as this evidence may seem to be , we should hesitate to peril our own . conscience on the assertion , that the judge and the consenting world were right , and that poor Hepzibah ,
with her solitary prejudice , was wrong . Hidden from mankind , —forgotten by himself , or buried so deeply under a sculptured and ornamented pile of ostentatious deeds that his daily life could take no note of it , —there may have lurked some evil and unsightly thing . Nay , we could almost venture to say , further , that a daily guilt might have been acted by him , continually renewed , and reddening forth afresh , like the miraculous blood-stain of a murder , without his necessarily and at every moment being aware of it .
" Men of strong minds , great force of character , and a hard textur of the sensibilities , are very capable of falling into mistakes of this kind . They are ordinarily men to whom forms are of paramount importance . Their field of action lies among the external phenomena of life . They possess vast ability in grasping , and arranging , and appropriating to themselves , the big , heavy , solid unrealities , such as gold , landed estate , offices of trust and emolument , and public honours . With these materials , and with deeds of goodly aspect , done in the public eye , an individual of this class builds up , as it were , a tall and stately edifice , which , in the view of other people .
and ultimately in his own view , is no other than the man ' s character , or the man himself . Behold , therefore , a palace ! Its splendid halls , and suites of spacious apartments , are floored with a mosaic-work of costly marbles ; its windows , the whole height of each room , admit the sunshine through the most transparent of plate-glass ; its high cornices are gilded , and its ceilings gorgeously painted ; and a lofty dome—through which , from the central pavement , you may gaze up to the sky , as with no obstructing medium between—surmounts the whole . With what fairer and nobler emblem could any man desire to shadow forth his character ? Ah ! but . in
some low and obscure nook , —some narrow closet on the ground floor , shut , locked , and bolted , and the key flung away , —or beneath the marble piivemont , in a stagnant water-puddle , with the richest pattern of mosaic-work above , —may lie a corp . se half decayed , and still decaying , and diffusing its death-Hcent all through the palace ! The inhabitant will not be conscious of it , for it h-is long been his daily breath ! Neither will the visitors , for they smell only the rich odours which the muster sedulously scatters through the palace , and the incense which ( they bring , and delight to bum before him ! Now and
then , perchance conies in a Heer , before whose sadly gifted eye the whole structure melts into thin air , leaving only the hidden nook , the bolted closet , with the cobwebs festooned over its forgotten door , or the deadly hole under the pavement , and the decaying corpse within . Mere , then , we are to seek the true emblem of the man ' s character , and of the deed thut gives whatever reality it possesses to his life . And , beneath the show of a marble palace , that pool of . stagnant water , foul with many impurities , and , perhaps , tinged with blood , — thut secret abomination , above which , possibly he may say his prayers , without remembering it , is this man ' s miserable soul !
" To apply this tram of remurk Home what more closely to Judge l ' yncheon . We might say ( without in the least imputing crime to a personage of his
the stiff timorous old maid , who , stiilened with Pyncheon pride , and standing erect upon her pedestal of gentility , in , nevertheless , reduced to tho ludicrous anticlimax of opening a cent shop—and she , tho withered old lady , has to sell lollypops and gingerbread to dirty-nosed urchins ! Nothing we can point to in fiction in more graphic than the account of tho old lady ' s first day ' s nhopkeeping ! Fortunately , n bright cheery girlher cousin—alights from an omnibus , pusses under that shadowing elm into tho dark House of tho Seven Gables , and throws a beam of sunshino
We are taken into New England and made to live in one of its old Puritan towns , under the shadow of an ancient elm , which stands before this House of the Seven Gables ; ( described with a gusto of romance which makes it almost a personage !) sombre stories of traditions connected with it , deepen the shadow , and prepare the mind for any amount of congealing horror . On this dark tapestry there are streaks of silver-light and poetry , and some quaint fantastic colours which only serve to throw the darkness into stronger relief . Among tho niiaintncHHcs let us mention llepzibah Pyncheon ,
wildness , an imagination , and a sort of weird sombreness which seizes hold of the mind , and compels you to follow all the windings of the story , rambling though it be . A certain novelty of scene , too , and of style—a vividness in the presentation of the bodily and mental characteristics of the actorswith a resolute avoidance of the old beaten tracks of commonplace , invest this romance with an unusual interest .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 21, 1851, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21061851/page/15/
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