John Randolph, of Roanoke, and other sketches
of character, including William Wirt together with tales of real life |
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THE DEVELOPMENT
OF
MIND AND CHARACTER. |
 | John Randolph, of Roanoke, and other sketches
of character, including William Wirt |  |
THE DEVELOPMENT
OF
MIND AND CHARACTER.
As we turn over the pages of history, the events
of by-gone days pass before the mind like a
splendid panorama, glittering and gorgeous, making
an impression of vastness and power; but
which, from its very expansion, leaves but an indistinct
recollection, in which the smaller objects
are so overshadowed by the larger, that they
escape the observation.
We mark the mighty stream that rolls by, and
in the contemplation of its greatness, we think
not of its source, or of its many tributaries.
To know men, we must study them. History
tells us how they acted, and gives us the peculiarities
of an age. Biography informs us why they
acted; gives the motives and the means; and holds
the mirror up so closely that we can scan every
we pass into a man's chamber with the familiarity
of an acquaintance. History keeps us aloof for
the pomp of the gala day.
We recur again and again to the memory of
those departed friends, who have gone before us to
the undiscovered country; while imagination pictures
their very tone, and form, and manner, until
they seem to stand in our very presence, and live
over again the busy scene which has passed.
With a feeling akin to this, we delight to refer
to those who have excited our admiration or our
wonder. We read again and again of their rise,
their progress, and their success; and we delight to
dwell on every glowing scene in which they figured,
until they seem to stand in our presence and to
live. How thrilling is the recollection of the
mighty dead! By it all the affections have been
ennobled, piety endeared, charity enkindled. It
has weakened every vice, and strengthened every
virtue.
To study what may be called the philosophy of
character, we must know all the circumstances
that formed it. Not only the diversity of scenes
through which the individual passed, but also the
effect which they produced upon his character as
he underwent their mutations. How much we are
all influenced by the scenes around us — by
friends, fortune, foes; by sickness and by health;
present, and by our anticipations of the future.
To the sanguine temperament, hope lends her
thousand allurements; on the melancholy, doubt
and dismay obtrude their thousand misgivings—
glimmerings of hope that end in fears, and fears
that end in despair.
Men of talents, more than other men, suffer
under these varieties and mutations of feeling.
Their acute sensibilities, their pride, their consciousness
of talent, their ambition—all influence
them at once, or by turns, and have made so many
of them unhappy, even when all they hoped for
was accomplished. How much keener were these
influences when doubts and difficulties surrounded
them; when, in their early struggles, they knew
not what the morrow would bring forth; and when,
judging from the past, it must bring forth anything
but joy. To such, in their moments of despondency,
when ambition beckoned them on, and stern and
cold reality weighed them down, the prospect was
almost as dark as Cato's in contemplating death:—
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it.”
Providence, as if for the purpose of making each
man's cup contain an equal portion of those ingredients
which constitute happiness, gives to him,
which the other never dreamed. She gives him
the unquiet of ambition and sensitiveness, which
those who have taken up their abode in the valley
never feel. They reflect that Content, the wise
man's personification of all earthly good, sits smiling
at their door; and what, without it, are sway,
and empire, and glory? And yet there are few
who do not feel the thirst of emulation, the panting
to reach the goal, when they reflect upon those who
have reached it. They forget how many have fallen
in the race; how many have been pushed aside by
the strong and the determined, who, in their turn,
have shrunk from those of higher powers. How
much circumstances have done, circumstances which
seemed but a feather, wind-wafted any and everywhere!
How often the best laid schemes, the profoundest
plots, the most cunning contrivances, have
passed away like the bubble in the stream, or turned
to the ruin of those who were exulting in their
handiwork! How often the best talents, adorned
with every virtue, have fallen before inferior talents,
disgraced with every vice. Yet, nevertheless, the
development of the talents and character of those
who have struggled through difficulties and danger
to eminence and power, is interesting and instructing;
no matter whether the individual used good or
bad means to attain his ends. And if interest
attaches to him who struggles ardently in a bad
nobly in a good one? Our Washington, no doubt,
in contemplating the actions of Cæsar and Cromwell,
felt that if they dared so much for mere
selfishness, he could dare more for patriotism;
that if they pledged life and fortune for their success,
he would pledge “life, fortune, and sacred
honor,” for the success of his country. Besides,
to show to aspiring ambition the rock on which so
many split, victims to unhallowed passions, is as
salutary as the Spartan's practice, when he exhibited
his intoxicated slave to his sons, that they
might shun the beastly vice to which the menial
was a victim. And again, to show, on the other
hand, the undaunted perseverance with which so
many great men have struggled in a good cause, is
to lead by the hand the unsteady and the wavering
until their foothold is sure. A great author used
to observe that, whenever he sat down to write, he
always placed the Iliad on the table open before
him. “For,” said he, “I like to light my taper
at the sun.” And, certainly, the actions of an
illustrious individual may be said to be a great
moral luminary, from which all who choose may
borrow light. That which elevates us above the
brute, which does us service, is moral energy; which,
like the fabled gift of the alchemist, extracted gold—
golden rules, I mean—from everything around us.
seek, with the spirit which may become a man.
The man of natural capacity, who relies upon
his sagacity and disregards books, often, it is true,
takes a just view of men and things; but he is very
apt to think that events, which have happened before
his eyes, are the most wonderful that ever did
happen, because he is not familiar with those of
other times; and he will exaggerate an occurrence
of comparatively little moment for a very natural
reason, it is the most remarkable he has heard of
or witnessed. On the other hand, the mere bookworm
is worse than he who disregards books; because
he is perpetually endeavoring to mould the
occurrences of the day with some fancied theory
of the past, and in looking at events, to use Dryden's
expression, “through the spectacle of books,”
he is, consequently, more apt to use his memory
and imagination in tracing the resemblances of
the past with the present, than his judgment in
marking their differences and acting accordingly.
The light of the past dazzles him; he has gazed on
it too much; and when he turns to the present, if
he cannot fashion some theory of compatibilities
and agreements, he is bewildered in perplexities;
and, if he does fashion a theory, it is one to which
Utopia is a commonplace.
Some men would have to new-mould their minds
before they would be qualified for the active and
with preconceived notions on the subject; and,
through all changes of circumstances and of opinion,
they go on by a kind of predestination in the path
of error. Others, again, legitimate descendants
from the family of Wrongheads, have, as they
think, a natural chart to discover truth, as honest
Jack Falstaff knew the true prince by instinct; and
by instinct they blunder on all their lives. Such
persons, in an intellectual point, belong to the hospital
of incurables.
There is an anecdote, happily illustrative of
those who see things just as they wish to see them.
An old clergyman, and the lady of his love, who,
though rather an old lady, was still an admirer
of the romance of the tender passion, were once
looking through a telescope at the moon.
“My gracious!” exclaimed the lady; “those
two figures, who incline towards each other, are
evidently two lovers who have met after a long absence.”
“Two lovers!” exclaimed the astonished
clergyman. “My dear, you are certainly crazy;
they are plainly and palpably the steeples of a
church.”
To watch the development of talent is one of
the most pleasing studies in which the mind can
possibly engage; for the whole being is displayed
before us, from the feverish impulses of the boy to
the fixed resolutions of the man. For every passion
acts upon the intellect, and the intellect acts
more martyrs even than religion, and the torch of
science has lighted the funeral pyre of many a
victim.
To keep the mind in continued action requires
the strongest motive. Lord Mansfield loved laughingly
to observe to his friends, “that particularly
favorable circumstances, fortune, friends, talents,
often made a great lawyer; but,” said he, “the
best thing in the world to make a great lawyer is
great poverty.” There is much truth in this remark;
and it would seem that it applied with equal
force to talents in whatever field of literature or
science their possessor sought to become distinguished.
So prone are many men of mind to indulgence
and ease, that, if there is not something
always goading them on, they are very likely to
stop by the way, like the traveller in the shady
spot, until night overtakes them, when they are apt
to lose their path, and spend the time they should
be pursuing their journey in seeking to find it.
Ambition has been called the last infirmity of
noble minds; yet how often is it the first impulse
to their nobility! A generous emulation acts on
the mind like the fairy in the legend of romance,
who guided her votary, amid innumerable difficulties
and dangers, till she led him to happiness.
To awaken the pupil's ambition should be the first
object of the tutor; for, until that be awakened, he
many eminent men have passed through school
with so few honors, and won so many from the
world. They have been “the glory of the college
and its shame;” and not until their energies were
aroused, and their ambition called forth, by the
stirring strife of the world, did they exhibit those
faculties which have made memorable an age or a
country. Had not these men genius at school?
Certainly. It was only dormant, like the strength
of the sleeping lion. And many boys have been
thought dunces at school, because their teachers
had not penetration and sagacity enough to discover
the latent spark of intellect within them.
Swift's college mates and teachers thought him
a dunce at the very time that he was writing his
“Tale of a Tub,” the rough draft of which he then
showed to his friend and room-mate. The Tale
was not published until many years afterwards.
He got his degrees at college by the “special favor”
of the faculty, as it stands recorded in the
archives. It appears he would not read the old
works on logic, but preferred laughing over Rabelais
and Cervantes. His teachers did not understand
his character. They should have studied it;
and then they could easily have controlled him,
and have prevented the lamentation on his part, in
after-days, that he had thrown away seven years of
his life. Let those students of talent who may
said of him, namely, “that though he had
thrown away seven years of his life in idleness, he
was determined not to throw away the rest in despair.”
Doubtless some young man, who ran away
with all the honors of the college as easily as all
the honors of the world afterwards ran away from
him, used to quote Swift as a proverb of stupidity;
and it was this after-resolution of Swift that gave
him the world's honors, and perhaps contentment
with the college honors, and a want of continued
industry that caused his competitors to lose them.
One of Byron's teachers pointed to him one day,
saying: “That lame brat will never be fit for anything
but to create broils.” Poor Byron, it is true,
had great talents for creating broils; but Dr. Drury,
another of his teachers, discovered that he had talents
of a far higher kind, and successfully sought
to awaken his emulation. It is pleasing to know
that, though Byron was always satirizing his other
teachers, and setting their authority at defiance,
for Dr. Drury he entertained the highest respect,
and has so expressed himself in language that will
not die.
When Scylla was about proscribing Cæsar, some
one asked him what he had to fear from that loose-girdled
boy! “In that loose-girdled boy,” said
he, “I see many promises.” Cromwell's associates
thought him a foolish fanatic; and it was his
predicting that he would be the greatest man in
the kingdom, should a revolution occur.
Patrick Henry gave so little promise of mind,
that, when he went to be examined touching his
qualifications to practice, one of the gentlemen who
were appointed to examine him, absolutely refused
the duty, he was so struck with the unpromising
appearance of the applicant. Yet, but a short time
afterwards, Henry made his great speech in the
Parsons cause. His talents were so little known,
even to his father, that the old gentleman, who was
one of the Judges, burst into tears on the bench;
while the people raised their champion on their
shoulders, and bore him in triumph through the
streets. How much sooner would have been the
development of Henry's mind if his emulation had
been earlier aroused, and a fit opportunity had been
given him for display. And when he was driving
the plough, or officiating as the barkeeper of a
common tavern, or roaming wild through the woods
in pursuit of deer, if he had met with some kind
friend, who would have taken him by the hand,
assisted him in his studies, excited his ambition,
talked to him of the immortal names of history,
and cheered him on to emulation, we should now
look up to him, not only as our Demosthenes, but
his own glowing pages would have been the best
monument of his renown.
Dr. Barrow's father said, that if it pleased the
Lord to take any of his children, he hoped it would
be Isaac, as he was fit for nothing but to fight and
set two dogs fighting. Nevertheless, when this
Isaac grew to manhood, and his emulation was
awakened, he was thought in mathematics to be
inferior only to Newton, and was the greatest
divine of his age.
It has been the misfortune of a great many
young men of talent, over whom the dark cloud
lowered in their younger years, to be placed among
those who did not understand their characters or
their merits, and who would rather crush than
assist them. And, too, there is a passion in this
world called envy—
Not Cato shunned nor Hercules subdued”—
haunted house, is always croaking evil—that will
tower at the highest names and burrow for the
lowest—that twin sister of jealousy, which has so
many buts and ifs to throw, like stumbling-blocks,
in the way of rising talent. At that time, too,
when the cheering voice of a friend falls upon the
ear like a blessing; when darkness and doubt are
before the aspirant, and behind him all the ills of
life—
“Despair, and fell disease, and ghastly poverty,”
envy goes forth, like the assassin at night, with
the felonious intent hot at heart, against the
youthful and aspiring genius. How easily, like
the cameleon, she can change her color, and fawn
the parasite of the successful! I remember once
hearing a sycophantic hanger-on at the skirts of
the bar, who was neither here nor there, one thing
or the other, but between the two, like Mahomet's
coffin, compliment the late Mr. Wirt on an effort
which that gentleman had then just made, and
which was certainly not one of his best. “Sir,”
said Wirt, in a deep tone, which came from the
bottom of his heart, “when a youth in Virginia,
in a little debating society, to an audience of six,
and one tallow candle, about fourteen to the pound,
I have made a better speech than that, when there
was no one to discover the merit of it, and none to
say, `God speed you.'”
Doctor Parr, the celebrated teacher, who used
to boast that he had flogged all the bishops in the
kingdom, and who, whenever it was said that such
and such a person had talents, would exclaim,
“Yes, sir, yes, sir, there's no doubt of it; I have
flogged him often, and I never throw a flogging
away.” This reverend gentleman was remarkable
for discovering the hidden talents of his pupils.
He was the first who discovered Sheridan's. He
says: “I saw it in his eye, and in the vivacity of
careless of literary fame.” Afterwards, when
Richard felt ambitious of such honors, he was
thrown, as Dr. Parr says, “upon the town,” without
resources, and left to his own wild impulses.
This, no doubt, was the cause of many of Sheridan's
errors and wanderings, which checkered the
whole of his splendid but wayward career. A
teacher wanting the observation of Dr. Parr, might
have concluded that because Sheridan would not
study, and no inducements could make him apply
himself, he wanted capacity. This was the case
with Dr. Wythe, his first teacher, who did not distinguish
between the want of capacity and the
want of industry. It appears, from the exploits of
the apple-loft and the partiality which Sheridan's
school-mates entertained for him, that he was more
ambitious of being the first at play than the first
at study. Sheridan had not then verified the proverb,
of “Good at work, good at play;” but it
often happens that he who wins the game among
boys, afterwards wins the game among men, when
there is a far deeper stake, and when, too, there is
not half so much mirth among the losers, and,
alas, not half so much happy-heartedness with the
winner.
A great man is almost always a great boy; that
is, in proportion as the man is superior to the men
around him, the boy was superior to the boys
be superior. I do think that an observer of character
will discover this, if he at all applies himself
to trace the history of the mind.
Locke tells us, and it is generally admitted
among metaphysicians that he tells us truly—
that we have no innate ideas—that sensation and
reflection originate them in the mind, which, until
they make their impress, is like a blank sheet of
paper. Now, if it is sensation and reflection which
write ideas upon the mind, of course the intellect
depends greatly upon circumstances to develop it,
and give it that bias of thought which seems like
instinct to determine its possessor to a particular
pursuit: for instance, to poetry, oratory, mathematics,
or mechanics. The poet, the orator, the
mathematician, or the mechanic, will often tell you
that he felt a great inclination to devote himself to
his particular vocation; and he will tell you, too,
whence he received it; but you will immediately
reflect that many have been placed in his situation
without feeling the least propensity towards that
pursuit. Observing an apple fall from a tree, led
Newton to his sublime speculations and discoveries;
but how many have observed an apple fall, in whose
minds the inquiry never arose, Why did it fall?
and how many have asked themselves why it fell,
without pursuing the subject farther than the inquiry;
and how few, if they had pursued the inquiry,
The biography of many eminent men teaches us
that, in their early contemplations, they felt many
impulses to different pursuits at different times,
which arose from an unaccountable train of reflections
suggesting themselves to their minds; or, what
is oftener the case, the impulse originated on reading
the life or studying the work of some eminent
man.
The first wish of Julius Cæsar was to be an
orator; and, according to Sallust and others, his
qualifications for oratory were of the highest order.
He might have been the first orator of Rome;
he preferred being the first warrior. Lord Mansfield's
first wish was to excel in poetry. Pope says
of him —
“Oh! what an Ovid was in Murray lost.”
Franklin says, that if his father had not dissuaded
him from poetry, he feared he should have been but
a bad verse-maker. Dr. Johnson set off from Litchfield
to London with an unfinished tragedy in his
pocket—all that he had in the world. Blackstone,
the celebrated author of the “Commentaries,” was
passionately fond of poetry; and his “Farewell to
the Muse,” which he wrote on commencing law,
shows that he had a talent for it. Byron's first
celebrated author of a work on the mind, contemplated
writing an epic poem, but abandoned the
idea to devote himself to metaphysics.
Sir Humphrey Davy, on leaving poetry for philosophy,
thus expressed himself:—
The fairy fancy pleased my mind,
And shone upon my youth;
But now, to awful reason given,
I leave her dear ideal heaven,
To hear the voice of truth.”
was to poetry. As Americans, we may congratulate
ourselves that, when the muses lost a favorite,
the law gained a votary, whose sagacity, judgment,
impartiality and patriotism have never been surpassed.
He held the scales of Justice with an impartial
hand, amidst all the conflicting claims of
the sovereign States, and amidst all the agitations
of party violence; and he has made sure, and
safe, and firm, all the great landmarks of constitutional
law. There was not a spot upon his
ermine. Peace to his ashes, and eternity to his
memory!
It would seem as if fortune had thrown impediments
in the way of many eminent men, merely to
test them, as the Spartan boy was compelled to
being admitted to the companionship of men.
The governments of Greece and Rome were
happily suited to foster emulation and energy in
their youths, and to fit them for the highest exertions
and the most desperate enterprises. The
prizes awarded to the successful at their various
trials of physical and intellectual strength, at their
shows, in their schools, and on all public occasions,
promoted and encouraged the ambition of the parties,
and made it the constant study of their lives
to excel. Intellectual power, of whatever kind,
or to whatever purpose devoted, was almost deified
by the ancients; and every person, from the highest
patrician to the lowest plebeian, might be said,
from the smallness of the ancient republics, to
come under the influence of its possessor. Therefore
it was that every art was practised to obtain
popularity; for, in a city with the government and
manners of Athens or Rome, popularity was
power, place, emolument — everything to which
ambition could aspire. Mind will govern wherever
it has a fair opportunity of displaying itself. We
observe the truth of this remark in every diversity
of civilized and savage life. It is more the intellect
of the Indian than the prowess of his arm
that makes him leader. What an influence, for
instance, Tecumseh, who has been called the
tribes of his people!
Demosthenes addressing the “stormy wave of
the multitude,” Napoleon upon the field of battle,
Washington in so many situations of his eventful
life, exhibited the highest powers of human energy.
It is in such situations that the force of the mind
is tried; and a great one, then, like the oak, gathers
strength from the very fury of the storm.
Certainly this energy, and self-control, and
power of controlling others, arise in a great measure
from education and the force of circumstances;
but much of it must also arise from what we cannot
account for, if we do not attribute it to an
idiosyncrasy of the mental constitution.
How many of those who wished to march against
Philip, quailed if Demosthenes was not by? It
was the mind of Napoleon which won the great
battles of his armies; and our fathers might long
have continued the subjects of England, had they
not been guided by the wisdom and virtue of
Washington.
Trace the characters of these men in their habits,
their feelings, their impulses, and their associations,
and will you not find that the boy was the miniature
of the man?
The remark is as old as Cicero, and its truth has
made it a proverb, that if a man has excellence of
one kind the world will deny that he has excellence
has no judgment, he has too much imagination.”
Chatham, it was said, declaimed so well that it was
evident he could not reason. Sheridan was pronounced
too witty to be wise. If you have an intellectual
gift which your neighbor has not, he
thinks it almost a matter of impossibility that you
should have it. And he will immediately tell some
such tale of you as the envious Cassius told Brutus
of Cæsar:—
As well as he.”
Demosthenes had more sublimity of thought than
any orator of his time. Who had the best judgment?
Demosthenes. Cicero had more wit and
imagination than any orator of Rome. Had he
not as profound judgment? Chatham had more
imagination and greater powers of declamation
than any statesman of his age. Had any of them
greater sagacity, knowledge, or penetration? Who
had greater powers of declamation than Canning?
Brougham has; and has he not more judgment
than fell to the lot of the departed premier?
Charles James Fox pronounced Napoleon's bulletins
and letters models of style and sublimity.
Did Napoleon want judgment? Mirabeau, who
controlled the deliberations of the National Assembly
of France in the stormiest time of her Revolution,
of his imagination as he was for the far-reaching
profundity of his views.
The opinion that talents are like a piece of
cabinet-work, fit only for a particular purpose for
which they were made, seems to be more prevalent
among moderns than it was among the ancients.
This may arise, in a great degree, from the accumulation
of knowledge and the necessity there now is
to know more, to be called eminent. The invention
of letters has wrought like a fairy gift, and
spread knowledge abroad to all. But the facilities
which this divine invention gives in the acquirement
of knowledge, have, by the accumulation of
it, made it necessary that the aspirant should devote
himself with the greater closeness to the particular
science in which he seeks success, as the
mistress is said to require the greater devotion from
her lover in proportion to the allurements around
him which might lead him astray. Now it would
take all the time of the closest student to keep
up with the increase of knowledge in many branches
of study. This was not so among the ancients.
The philosophers, from their academies, delivered
their precepts to their disciples, which passed among
them as the undisputed truth. We observe, that
individuals among the ancients excelled in many
different pursuits, which, among the moderns, are
held to be incompatibilities. Themistocles, for
one of the best orators; and he commanded at the
sea-fight of Salamis, which saved the liberties of
Greece. Cato, the censor, was at once a statesman,
a warrior, an orator, and an author. “Plutarch's
Lives” are full of the truth of this remark. Napoleon
and Chatham placed this work under their
pillows every night, and read it in the morning
previous to entering on the duties of the day, as
the ancient priest repaired to the inner sanctuary
that he might catch inspiration from the presence
of the divine itself.
I can no more believe that every poet placed in
Byron's situation would have written as he did,
than I can believe that every man so situated would
go into voluntary exile. I merely say that every
man, to be great, must have natural capacity, genius,
or whatever metaphysicians please to call it;
and there must be sufficient motive acting upon his
mind to awaken its powers; and that the motive
and circumstances that arouse them will always
give them a peculiar bias, which might seem to the
individual himself a very instinct determining him
to his particular pursuit.
Some minds need a much stronger incitement
than others to call forth their energies. A man
with Dr. Johnson's indolence and habits of procrastination,
requires a much stronger motive to make
him exert his talents than a man with Newton's
temptations to allure him away from intellectual
toil, should have the very strongest motive to keep
him to it. The ball, the rout, the dinner-party,
the club, in each of which he cut such a conspicuous
figure, all led him away from those studies which
he should have pursued. Perhaps nothing but
stern necessity would have made him a student.
While Dr. Franklin would sit up half the night, not
by compulsion, but as a pleasure, when there was
almost a necessity that he should retire to rest to
enable him to undergo the labors of the coming
day—Dr. Johnson, to use his own expression,
“had to provide for the day that was passing over
him” by his intellectual toil, and he shrank from
it as if he considered it all labor.
Then, if these remarks be correct, a man must
not only have genius, but he must be placed in circumstances
favorable to its development; and it
requires different circumstances to call forth the
intellect of different individuals.
The mind, its purposes and impulses, previous to
receiving its bias, is in the state of a mass of water
that has been diked in, and which, when it forces
its way, rolls an irresistible flood, bearing on the
bosom of its onward wave every leaf and stem so
naturally, that, in contemplating it, either of us
would say—“Nature, surely, formed that channel.
See how beautifully the willow bends over it, how
such ample volume, as it stretches through the
plain! Surely, it must have rolled there when
time was young. No, not so; if it had found vent
in another place, that willow would not have grown
there; there would have been no flower at the foot
of the hill, and that fertile plain would now be a
barren waste, herbless, fruitless, treeless.” Thus
it is with the mind. Corregio, no doubt, felt many
stirrings of ambition very different from an artist's,
previous to becoming a painter; but when he saw
the painting which struck him more than anything
he had ever seen before, the whole tide of his feelings
burst forth, and, starting back, he exclaimed
with enthusiasm—“And I also am a painter,” devoted
himself to the art, and became one of the
greatest painters that ever lived. When a man
has talents and firmly applies himself, he must be
great.
Montesquieu, the author of the “Spirit of Laws,”
was twenty years completing the celebrated work
which has given his name to immortality. He remarked
on its completion, that he had read and
re-read the works of the great luminaries of science;
“and,” said he, quoting Corregio, “I also am a
painter.”
Milton, too, said in his youth, feeling the flame
from the divine altar burning within him, that he
not willingly let die. And who, in his imagination,
has not contemplated the wan, attenuated,
blind old man apostrophizing that celestial light
which shone but upon his mind?
Of th' Eternal, coeternal beam;
May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity.”
in sickness, in poverty, and in disgrace, bequeathing
his name to posterity, after some time should
have passed away!
It is this deep, heartfelt enthusiasm, and far-reaching
aspiration, and high hope, that make the
great man. As soon as his mind has received its
bias, and he has determined his particular pursuit,
with a devotion that falters not—with a toil that
never tires—with a singleness of love that nothing
woos him from winning, he pursues his purposes;
and is it to be wondered that he gains his point?
Leander crossed the Hellespont, to meet the
lady of his love, though the billows heaved high,
and the tempest broke over him; and thus must
the poet, the statesman, the orator, and the philosopher,
bear on to his purpose—
Through life unchilled, unmoved,
And love in wintry age the same
As first in youth he loved.”
What, then, do these facts impress upon one?
Why, that no matter what others may think of
your intellectual powers, press on, and you may
strike the mine; for who knows but what you possess
it. Feel as Sheridan felt when Woodfall told
him, after hearing his first speech in Parliament,
that he would never make an orator. “It is in
me, however,” said Sheridan, “and it shall come
out.” It was in him, and it did come out. He
lived to make, on the impeachment of Warren
Hastings, for effect, the greatest effort that was
ever heard in the British Parliament, and which
has only been equalled by Burke's eulogy upon it;
an effort of which Burke, Fox, and Pitt, became
rivals in eulogy; which caused Pitt to move an adjournment
of the House, declaring that he himself
“was under the enchanter's wand;” an effort which
made the culprit Hastings confess that, for awhile,
he believed himself guilty; which brought from
brothers and sisters, and the remotest connection
letters that boasted of their relationship to him;
an effort which drew from his lovely and devoted
wife tears and words of heartfelt, womanly,
and holy pride, in which his very servant participated;
for we learn that he was “long celebrated”
closing words. It was an effort that made every
Irishman proud of his country, and every Englishman
prouder of his language. A man of genius
should feel as did Burns, who concluded, that because
he could plough as well as another youth who
wrote verses, that he could write verses as well. If
you fail once, do as Jacob Faithful advises: “Try
it again, and you may have better luck next time.”
But remember that these trials be in the cause
of virtue, and that your talents be devoted not only
to your own advancement but to the public good.
One of the most touching productions of the modern
muse, is the lines entitled “My Birthday,” from
the pen of Ireland's favorite bard, in which he
laments the birthdays that will not return and give
the power of amendment; and speaks—
Hap'ly for high and pure designs,
But oft, like Israel's incense, laid
Upon unholy earthly shrines.”
A still more memorable lamentation over errors
that could not be corrected, is narrated by Dumont
in his “Recollections of Mirabeau.” At the commencement
of the French Revolution, Mirabeau
went to Paris, ruined in fortune and reputation.
His wild passions were as reckless as the swollen
mountain stream, the proclivity of which to the
valley is not more certain than were his impulses
tailor,” and was elected to the States General.
Such was the low ebb of his moral character that
hisses, curses, and execrations followed him as he
entered the National Convention. By the power
of his talents he forced his way; and when the
Jacobins rose up against him, he exclaimed in his
loudest voice, shaking his “boar's head” at them,
“Silence, those thirty voices!” and they were
silent at his bidding. But, alas, in the midst of
his power, he felt how much greater it would have
been had his moral character stood as high as his
talents. Dumont states his belief that Mirabeau
would have gone “seven times through the heated
furnace” to have purified his name, for he was conscious
that if his personal reputation had been good
he would have had the control of all France. Mirabeau's
friend has seen him burst into a passion of
tears when reflecting upon this subject, and heard
him, in a voice almost inarticulate with grief, exclaim:
“I am cruelly expiating the errors of my
youth.” At the age of forty-two he died of his
excesses; and all Paris, forgetting his errors in
the splendor of his talents and services, went weeping
to his funeral. But for these excesses, he might
have lived with a virtuous as well as a brilliant
renown, and have saved France from the horrors
of her fearful revolution. What a lesson! What
a moral!
Alas! we have too many instances to prove that
talents, though they may win for their possessor
public admiration, fail to secure him public confidence
if he wander from the paths of rectitude.
On the other hand, behold the respect and reverence
which gathered in blessings around the brows
of Chatham, Henry, Marshall, and Washington.
Emulate their example; and, though you may not
all be great, the saying is as trite as it is true, that
you can all be good.
| John Randolph, of Roanoke, and other sketches
of character, including William Wirt | |