University of Virginia Library

ROMANCE.

It is the fashion in this philosophic day
to laugh at Romance, and cut all acquaintance
with sentiment; but I doubt whether
these same philosophers are not making
themselves `too wise to be happy.' Wordsworth
has called `fancy the mother of deep
truth,' and perhaps the time will come when
the learned will acknowledge that there is
more philosophy in Romance, than their sagacity
has dreamed of. Mysterious aspirations
after something higher and holier,—
the gladness of fancy that comes upon the
heart in the stillness of nature,—impatience
under the tyranny of earth-born passions,—
and the pure and joyous light of truth, reflecting
its own innocent brightness on a corrupted

and selfish world,—all these belong
to the young and the romantic. What does
increase of years and knowledge teach us?
It teaches us to seem what we are not,—to
act as if the world were what we know it is
not,—and to be cautious not to alarm the
self-love of others, lest our own should be
wounded in return. And is this wisdom?
No. I do believe the young mind, that has
not reasoned itself into scepticism and coldness,
stands nearer heaven's own light, and
reflects it more perfectly, than the proud
ones who laugh at its intuitive perceptions.
Do not all the boasted results of human research
and human philosophy vary in different
ages, climates, situations, and circumstances?
Are not all the deep, immutable, and
sacred sympathies, that bind mankind in the
golden chain of brotherhood, instinctive?
Yes, I do believe the influences of a better
world are around youthful purity, teaching
it a higher and more infallible morality than
has ever been taught by worldly experience.
Man must wander from the school of Nature
before he can need to look for his duties in
a code of ethics.

The Egyptians had a pleasant fancy with
regard to the soul. They thought that the
minds of men were once angelic spirits, who,
discontented with their heavenly home, had
passed its boundary, drank the cup of oblivion
suspended half way between heaven
and earth, and descended to try their destiny
among mortals. Here, reminiscences of what
they had left would come before them in
glances and visions, startling memory into
hope, and waking experience into prophecy.
Various philosophers have supposed that our
souls have passed, and will yet pass, through
infinite modes of existence. It is a theory I
love to think upon. There is something
beautiful in the idea that we have thus obtained
the sudden thoughts, which sometimes
flash into life at the touch of association,
fresh as if newly created, yet familiar as if
they had always slumbered in the soul.
How the beautiful things of creation arouse
a crowd of fitful fancies in the mind. Is not
the restlessness produced by their indistinct
loveliness strangely like a child's puzzled
remembrance of its early abandoned home?

But all this is not to the point. My question
is, not how romantic ideas came into the
soul,—but whether it be true wisdom to drive
them thence?

Observation of the world will convince us
that it is not wise to expel romantic ideas,
but simply to regulate them. All our nicest
sympathies, and most delicate perceptions,
have a tinge of what the world calls romance.
Let earthly passions breathe upon them, or
experience touch them with her icy finger,
and they flit away like fairies when they
hear the tread of a human foot. There are
those who laugh at love, imagination, and
religion, and sneeringly call them `dreams—
all dreams;' but the proudest of them cannot
laugh at the lover, the poet, and the devotee,
without a smothered sigh that their
ærial visitants have gone from him for ever,
and the dark mantle of worldly experience
fallen so heavily over their remembered
glories.

It is wise to keep something of romance,
though not too much. Our nature is an
union of extremes; and it is true philosophy
to keep them balanced.

To let the imagination sicken with love of
ideal beauty, till it pines away into echo, is
worse than folly; but to check our affections,
and school our ideas, till thought and feeling
reject every thing they cannot see, touch,
and handle, certainly is not wisdom.

Do not send reason to the school of theory,
and then bid her give a distinct outline
of shadowy fancies,—she will but distort
what she cannot comprehend. Do not, by
petulance and sensuality, frighten away the
tenderness and holy reverence of youthful
love—philosophy may teach you a lesson of
resignation, or scorn, but your heart is human,
and it cannot learn it. Do not reason
upon religion till it becomes lifeless; would
you murder and dissect the oracle to find
whence the voice of God proceeds?

Be, then, rational enough for earth; but
keep enough of romance to remind us of
heaven. We will not live on unsubstantial
fairy-ground,—but we will let the beautiful
troop visit us without being scared from the
scene of their graceful and happy gambols.