 | Poems and prose writings |  |
THE WRITER OF THE IDLE MAN,
TO HIS OLD FRIENDS.
Let me say, first of all, that although I address you in this
letter, as the writer of “The Idle Man,” I have concluded (I
hardly know why) to drop the title, in bringing the contents of
that work once more before the public.
It is a little over ten years since I sent forth my last number
of the Idle Man. It was the first number of an intended
second volume: I had not long before closed the first volume, in
these words: — “It is a pleasant thing to have our lonely labours
helped on by the remembrance that they have met with kind
encouragement, and by the belief that they will meet with still
more.” In this belief, however, I was mistaken; and I found
it necessary to stop the work. It was painful to do so; for the
continual stimulus of an interesting purpose before me, kept the
mind clear and active, and the spirits elastic under the weight
that pressed upon them. It is true that I had disagreeable things
to encounter; as what man has not who is somewhat newly
before the public? especially if he discovers individuality of
character, earnestness of feeling, and a steady reliance upon his
own opinions and tastes.
I should, indeed, have been wanting to myself, had I suffered
these obstructions to trouble me, any further than they stopped
the way to needed pecuniary success. And, why should they
have troubled me further? I never much affected notoriety; so,
there were no ambitious desires to be crossed on that road. I
had the approbation of those whose opinions I had always held
in honour; and what was far better and more heart-comforting,
I had their sympathy and their love. Last of all, let me be
allowed to say, that I could not feel such an inferiority to
humble trust in those powers with which God had seen fit to
bless me.
I have alluded to these things, to account for a long silence,
seldom broken. For though I cannot bow to a certain dictatorial
manner in which the claims of the public upon the individual
are now-a-days apt to be asserted, yet I feel as much as
any man the obligation upon each one to do, according to his
ability, for that world in which the Creator has placed him.
If I am now asked, what it is that encourages me to come
once more before the public, notwithstanding my former disappointment;
I would answer, that I am better known now than
I was then, and if I am not mistaken, proportionably, at least,
more in favour; and that, although the majority are, for the
present, running into physical pursuits, yet of those who keep
their hold upon literature, there is a rapidly increasing class between
whose speculations, opinions, and tastes, and my own,
I can feel there is growing up a social and cheering agreement.
And this is a delightful reflection to me; for to feel solitary,
even in that which is in itself innocent, is sad, and hurts our
hearts too, if we keep not a watch over them.
And, here, I would say: Let any one who has an inward conviction
that he holds the truth (no matter what the subject)
gather strength from hence, and feel assured, that although the
multitude immediately around him, with but a few exceptions,
may differ from him, yet there are still seven thousand, somewhere
in Israel, who have not bowed the knee:—It is not
strange that the united company around us should believe themselves
to be “all the world;” but it is strange that those who
agree with them in little beside, should ever think them so too.
I am aware that my writings may never make me, what is
called, “a general favourite;” and, if, from the study of myself
and others, I had not long ago come to this conclusion, the concern
for me of some well-meaning acquaintances would ere this
have led me to it.
When, for instance, I have been heard to speak of that delightful
gentleman, Mr. Geoffrey Crayon, so tender and moving,
when he chooses to be so, yet so delicately blending the humorous
with the sad, (a rare power, and one in which he has scarcely
been surpassed since the days of the old dramatists,) and possessed
withal, of such winning good-nature, and such grace,—I
write a few tales like Mr. Crayon's?
And, so, when I have spoken of Mr. Cooper, of his Leather
Stocking, (a character hardly surpassed in modern fiction, if
taken in its true order, through the three novels,) or, generally,
of his naturalness, of his vivid and clear description, his rapid
action and lightning-like revelation of passion, — I have been
asked, with the utmost simplicity, why I did not undertake a
novel after Mr. Cooper's manner.
And what, I have replied, would Mr. Crayon have brought
to pass, had he, for instance, attempted to write like that extraordinary
man, Charles Brockden Brown? And where would
Mr. Cooper have been by this time, had he followed in the footsteps
of Mr. Crayon, over smooth lawns, and by bright prattling
brooks, or the little calm-surfaced, heaven-reflecting lake?
I do much wonder whether some people ever heard of the
word, Idiosyncrasy. And I wonder, might exclaim Mr. —
whether they ever heard of the word, Phrenology.
I know not how it may be with others; but if I am to
write fiction, which shall have in it the character and the
force of truth, it must, in very deed, be truth to me, at the time.
I have left out of the present volume all the articles in the
Idle Man which were not from my own pen.
Separating from my own that with which my friends furnished
me, is like parting with old companions. “The Hypochondriac”
must here take his leave of the world, for the present,
and the public must give up a little more good prose, and some
true poetry. But the poetry from Mr. Bryant they will not
lose; — that they will find lying amongst his other beautiful
and precious things in the work which he not long ago gave to
the world.
But, “The West Wind!” the title of the last thing which he
wrote for me — I must part with that too. If it had been written
purposely to follow “Paul Felton,” it could not have been
more appropriate, it breathed such a calm through one, after
witnessing the struggles of that wretched man. Beautiful as it
is in itself, it will never be the same gentle air to me any where
else; nor will the pines give out that same saddening, yet soothing
murmur which they did when they grew by the graves of
Paul and Esther: — I wish they were growing there still!
Will my old friends allow me to close with a word to those
whom I hope before long to call my young friends?
Some who were members of one or another of our many colleges
when the Idle Man appeared, have since told me, that
could I have known of the interest which was taken in it at
those institutions, and the feelings it called out towards me, I
should not have given it up as I did. I think I should not have
done so; for I have always looked with deep interest upon the
early forming of the moral and intellectual character; and the
love of the young for me takes a strong hold upon my heart.
And when I remember what seeds of affection and sentiment,
of poetry and all spiritual aspirations, are sown in the young, to
germinate, or to die, as the sun and dews may fall on them, or
not, I cannot but have a deep sensation of delight, that any
thing of mine should have ever so little of these unfolding influences
upon them.
I shall never forget with what feeling my friend Bryant some
years ago described to me the effect produced upon him by his
meeting for the first time with Wordsworth's Ballads. He
lived, when quite young, where but few works of poetry were
to be had, at a period, too, when Pope was still the great idol in
the Temple of Art. He said, that upon opening Wordsworth, a
thousand springs seemed to gush up at once in his heart, and
the face of nature, of a sudden, to change into a strange freshness
and life. He had felt the sympathetic touch from an according
mind, and you see how instantly his powers and affections
shot over the earth and through his kind.
If I could, in my humble way, awaken some young man, of
however inferior powers to our delightful poet, to a sensation
in any poor degree like this, I should bless God for it the remainder
of my days.
Too many of the young of this time, do need awakening; for
this is hardly the age of profound philosophy, of lofty imagination,
or of deep and simple sentiment. But although the age
is generally wanting in these respects, there are a few minds of
a noble order rising up, not only abroad, but even in this land;
and as they ascend, I can see their intellectual rays, while I
watch them at a humble distance, stretching out more and more;
and ere long they will touch the one the other, and make one
common light, that shall flood all lands. A more spiritual philosophy
than man ever before looked on, and a poetry twin
with it, are fast coming into full life. Yes, a day of far-spreading
splendour is breaking; the clear streak of it is already in the
yonder, “the dawning hills!”
Why, my young friends, I well remember the time when
Wordsworth — the great Wordsworth — served for little else
than travesty to the witling, smartness to the reviewer, and for
a sneer to the fastidious pretender to taste; and when, too, the
philosophy of Coleridge was held as little better than a dream.
But now, he who cannot relish Wordsworth, is advised to betake
himself to the Annuals; and the man who is unable to
enter into the deep things of Coleridge, though he may pass for
an alert dialectician, must no longer think of dictating from the
philosopher's chair: To profess to differ from Coleridge may be
safe, but to profess to hold him to be incomprehensible, would
now savour less of a profession than a confession, to be kept for
the ear of some ghostly father alone.
To bring my unintentionally long letter to a close. — In
sending this volume into the world, the Prose goes forth as an
elder brother, with his sister, Poetry. She, it is true, is not the
child of my youth, yet not wanting, I hope, in the feelings of
youth, nor altogether without sentiment and imagination, and
an eye for nature, and a love of it, though lacking, I am sensible,
something of that melody of voice and that harmony of expression,
which so win upon us unawares, and by the opposite of
which finely attuned spirits are so apt to be pained.
I will not affect an indifference which I do not feel. I have
an earnest desire for the success of this volume, and to that end,
for a generally good opinion of it, although in estimating what
is my own, as well as what belongs to others, the opinion of the
many is of less weight with me, than the judgment of the few.
To be liked of those whose hearts and minds I esteem, would
be unspeakable comfort to me, and would open sympathies with
them in my nature, which lie deep in the immortal part of me,
and which, therefore, though beginning in time, will doubtless
live on in eternity. To such hearts and minds I now humbly,
but especially commend myself.
| Poems and prose writings | |