University of Virginia Library

BROAD VIEWS.

I love to steal away from a group of system-worshippers,
and commune awhile with some solitary, uncourted
being, whose scope of thought is unlimited by any artificial
bounds, and the play of whose feelings is as free as
the mountain wind. It is like leaving the smoky precincts
of a highland hut, on a summer morning, to stand
beneath the open sky and look forth upon the hills.
There is something as refreshiug to the mind's eye in
broad views of life and man, of art and literature, of facts
and individuals, of nature and society, as there is to the
bodily sense in majestic and boundless scenery. Broad
views are characteristic of mental elevation. To the
eagle's eye, when he hangs poised among the clouds, a
common arena and universal atmosphere blend the aspect
of earth and her myriads. By as certain a law, does the
human universe present a general and softened picture
to the intellect, sublimated by love and enlarged by culture.

It was once my privilege to walk through a renowned

repository of art, with a man of genius. I had scrutinized
the various objects there preserved with companions
of less calibre, who evidently prided themselves
upon detecting discrepancies of style and errors of execution.
My new cicerone, on the contrary, designated
beauties in works, which, as wholes, are held in light estimation,
and was continually directing my attention to
the lesser excellencies of the more celebrated productions.
This was the genuine spirit of noble criticism. Broad
views are as naturally taken by gifted men, as limited
ones by those of subordinate intelligence. You never
hear an ardent lover of art or literature commenting con
amore, upon the minor blemishes of a production in which
genius is dominant. How do the aspirants for a reputation
for gentility err by continually mooting the narrow
topic of rank; and how do the would-be critics mistake
their vocation by anxiously discussing etymologies!
Broad views are the legitimate result of experience and
general knowledge.

The author of some modern farce makes one of his
heroes, an accomplished Parisian duellist, console a foreign
coxcomb whom he has challenged, by promising to
have him `neatly packed up and directed.' Somewhat
after this fashion, men appear to be dealt with in society.
Because an individual sees fit to connect himself with a
certain association, manifest an interest in a specific object,
or temporarily display, with more than ordinary
force, a particular principle of his nature, he is at once
classed, newly baptized with a party name, enrolled,
severed by an artificial distinction—in a word, `packed

up and directed.' An imaginary badge is affixed to him
as significant as the philactery of the pharisee, the star of
courtly honour, or the colored ribbon denoting academic
or knightly preferment. To all the general interests and
purposes of social life, he is proscribed. The usual method
of answering the question, `What sort of a person is
—?' is to designate the body political, scientific or otherwise,
to which the individual is attached. A fashionable
votary refers you to the `circle,' a religionist to the
`sect,' and an intellectualist, to the `school;' each
`packs up and directs' that most diverse, spontaneous,
and free of human results—character, according to his
whim.

Classification is doubtless very applicable to minerals
and plants, and labels have been found very useful in
pharmacy. The inert, unalterable, fixed qualities of
matter may be designated by a specific or generic name,
may be `packed up and directed:' but the idea of so
disposing of human beings—of indicating the endless
modifications of feeling, imagination and thought, by any
epithet referring only to opinions, is preposterous in the
extreme. We have two brief, but most expressive terms
for the two most sublime objects in the universe; we
speak of sea and sky; but whoever thinks of taking profound
cognizance of a particular wave, or devoutly following
through the horizon a single, shifting cloud?
We regard the various movements of the deep and the
ever changing aspect of the heavens, with perfect confidence
that the calm etherial canopy of the one still
stretches in beauty above, and the fathomless depths of

the other still sound on their way below. Why should
we be less just to man? Why believe that the deep attributes,
the great elements of his nature, are invaded by
the aspects his versatile being presents in a world of
circumstances? Why fix our eye upon the temporary
wave or the passing cloud, when there is an infinite
depth below and a glorious expanse above, which
shall endure when the currents of opinion and the
breezes of circumstance have died away on an illimitable
shore?

If Madame de Staël did not grievously err in her idea
that mankind are never alike but `through affectation
or design,' then this system of classifying is especially
unjust, and to form any definite notion of an individual
from the party-title affixed to him, is altogether unphilosophical.
Yet how perversely we cut ourselves off
from society calculated to inspire the deepest interest or
to exert a most auspicious influence, by the dominion of
some foolish antipathy! Hundreds are avoided or but
casually known because they labor under the imputation
of being antiquarians, phrenologists, or littérateurs,
as if each and all of these characters might not be cultivated
without absording humanity! Yet being `packed
up and directed' under these or equally effective terms,
men, ay, and women too, are rendered obnoxious to
no small portion of their fellow creatures. `Why do you
not converse with Miss A—?' I enquired of a very
sensible lady at a party the other evening. `Oh, I'm
terribly afraid of literary ladies,' she replied, with an ill-suppressed
shudder at my suggestion. Now the lady in

question had merely given to the public some lively
sketches of common life, such as would have been very
appropriate epistolary matter wherewith to entertain an
absent friend; and she was in the habit of talking
well of every thing in the whole range of topics, except
literature, about which she knew and cared no more
than was absolutely necessary to vindicate her claims
to ordinary cultivation. Yet was she thus unceremoniously
`packed up' in that peculiarly odious box marked
`BLUES.'

This miserable habit of our times is vividly illustrated
by the manner in which those next most sacred things
to mortals, books are treated. Celsus reprobates the
idea of a fixed system of diet, on the ground that men
are exposed to every variety of influence and condition
of body; and if books have been justly considered
as mental food, then may we, on the same ground, advantageously
vary our reading. Yet there is scarcely
an individual who has not `packed up and directed'
numberless works, of the true value of which he is altogether
unaware; packed them up in the iron casket of
prejudice, and directed them to the far distant region of
neglect.

`It is the spirit of the soul's natural piety,' says
a British divine, `to alight on whatever is touching
or beautiful in every faith, and take thence its secret
draught of pure and fresh emotion.' And so is it
the spirit of him accustomed to broad views, to recognize
man, as such, however artificially displayed,
to blot out, at a glance, the label society has attached to

him, and behold the earlier and indelible signature of
nature;—