University of Virginia Library

I.

Among the various conflicting modes of writing history, there
would seem to be two grand practical distinctions, under which
all the rest must subordinately range. By the one mode, all
contemporaneous circumstances, facts, and events must be set
down contemporaneously; by the other, they are only to be set
down as the general stream of the narrative shall dictate; for
matters which are kindred in time, may be very irrelative in
themselves. I elect neither of these; I am careless of either;
both are well enough in their way; I write precisely as I please.

In the earlier chapters of this volume, it has somewhere been
passingly intimated, that Pierre was not only a reader of the
poets and other fine writers, but likewise—and what is a very
different thing from the other—a thorough allegorical understander
of them, a profound emotional sympathizer with them;
in other words, Pierre himself possessed the poetic nature; in
himself absolutely, though but latently and floatingly, possessed
every whit of the imaginative wealth which he so admired,
when by vast pains-takings, and all manner of unrecompensed
agonies, systematized on the printed page. Not that as yet his
young and immature soul had been accosted by the Wonderful
Mutes, and through the vast halls of Silent Truth, had been
ushered into the full, secret, eternally inviolable Sanhedrim,

where the Poetic Magi discuss, in glorious gibberish, the Alpha
and Omega of the Universe. But among the beautiful imaginings
of the second and third degree of poets, he freely and
comprehendingly ranged.

But it still remains to be said, that Pierre himself had written
many a fugitive thing, which had brought him, not only
vast credit and compliments from his more immediate acquaintances,
but the less partial applauses of the always intelligent,
and extremely discriminating public. In short, Pierre had frequently
done that, which many other boys have done—published.
Not in the imposing form of a book, but in the more
modest and becoming way of occasional contributions to magazines
and other polite periodicals. His magnificent and victorious
debut had been made in that delightful love-sonnet, entitled
“The Tropical Summer.” Not only the public had applauded
his gemmed little sketches of thought and fancy,
whether in poetry or prose; but the high and mighty Campbell
clan of editors of all sorts had bestowed upon him those
generous commendations, which, with one instantaneous glance,
they had immediately perceived was his due. They spoke in
high terms of his surprising command of language; they begged
to express their wonder at his euphonious construction of sentences;
they regarded with reverence the pervading symmetry
of his general style. But transcending even this profound insight
into the deep merits of Pierre, they looked infinitely beyond,
and confessed their complete inability to restrain their
unqualified admiration for the highly judicious smoothness and
genteelness of the sentiments and fancies expressed. “This
writer,” said one,—in an ungovernable burst of admiring fury
—“is characterized throughout by Perfect Taste.” Another,
after endorsingly quoting that sapient, suppressed maxim of
Dr. Goldsmith's, which asserts that whatever is new is false,
went on to apply it to the excellent productions before him;
concluding with this: “He has translated the unruffled gentleman

from the drawing-room into the general levee of letters;
he never permits himself to astonish; is never betrayed into
any thing coarse or new; as assured that whatever astonishes
is vulgar, and whatever is new must be crude. Yes, it is the
glory of this admirable young author, that vulgarity and vigor
—two inseparable adjuncts—are equally removed from him.

A third, perorated a long and beautifully written review, by
the bold and startling announcement—“This writer is unquestionably
a highly respectable youth.”

Nor had the editors of various moral and religious periodicals
failed to render the tribute of their severer appreciation, and
more enviable, because more chary applause. A renowned
clerical and philological conductor of a weekly publication of
this kind, whose surprising proficiency in the Greek, Hebrew,
and Chaldaic, to which he had devoted by far the greater part
of his life, peculiarly fitted him to pronounce unerring judgment
upon works of taste in the English, had unhesitatingly
delivered himself thus:—“He is blameless in morals, and
harmless throughout.” Another, had unhesitatingly recommended
his effusions to the family circle. A third, had no reserve
in saying, that the predominant end and aim of this
author was evangelical piety.

A mind less naturally strong than Pierre's might well have
been hurried into vast self-complacency, by such eulogy as
this, especially as there could be no possible doubt, that the
primitive verdict pronounced by the editors was irreversible,
except in the highly improbable event of the near approach of
the Millennium, which might establish a different dynasty of
taste, and possibly eject the editors. It is true, that in view of
the general practical vagueness of these panegyrics, and the
circumstance that, in essence, they were all somehow of the
prudently indecisive sort; and, considering that they were
panegyrics, and nothing but panegyrics, without any thing
analytical about them; an elderly friend of a literary turn,

had made bold to say to our hero—“Pierre, this is very high
praise, I grant, and you are a surprisingly young author to receive
it; but I do not see any criticisms as yet.”

“Criticisms?” cried Pierre, in amazement; “why, sir, they
are all criticisms! I am the idol of the critics!”

“Ah!” sighed the elderly friend, as if suddenly reminded
that that was true after all—“Ah!” and went on with his
inoffensive, non-committal cigar.

Nevertheless, thanks to the editors, such at last became the
popular literary enthusiasm in behalf of Pierre, that two young
men, recently abandoning the ignoble pursuit of tailoring for
the more honorable trade of the publisher (probably with an
economical view of working up in books, the linen and cotton
shreds of the cutter's counter, after having been subjected to
the action of the paper-mill), had on the daintiest scollopededged
paper, and in the neatest possible, and fine-needle-work
hand, addressed him a letter, couched in the following terms;
the general style of which letter will sufficiently evince that,
though—thanks to the manufacturer—their linen and cotton
shreds may have been very completely transmuted into paper,
yet the cutters themselves were not yet entirely out of the
metamorphosing mill.

“N. B.—If the list does not comprise all your illustrious wardrobe—works,
we mean—, we shall exceedingly regret
it. We have hunted through all the drawers—magazines.

“Sample of a coat—title for the works of Glendinning:

THE
COMPLETE WORKS
OF
GLENDINNING,
AUTHOR OF
That world-famed production, “The Tropical Summer: a Sonnet.”

“The Weather: a Thought.” “Life: an Impromptu.” “The
late Reverend Mark Graceman: an Obituary.” “Honor:
a Stanza.” “Beauty: an Acrostic.” “Edgar:
an Anagram.” “The Pippin: a Paragraph.”

&c. &c. &c. &c.
&c. &c. &c.
&c. &c.
&c.”

From a designer, Pierre had received the following: