Page:Papers on Literature and Art (Fuller).djvu/93

Rh keep a whole Satanic school in the soul from spouting aloud. What says the benign Uhland?

There is no getting rid of the epidemic of the season, however annoying and useless it may seem. You cannot cough down an influenza; it will cough you down.

Why young people will just now profess themselves so very miserable, for no better reason than that assigned by the poet to some “inquiring friends,”

I have here no room to explain. Enough that there has for some time prevailed a sickliness of feeling, whose highest water-mark may be found in the writings of Byron. He is the “power man” (as the Germans call him, meaning perhaps the power-loom!) who has woven into one tissue all those myriad threads, tear-stained and dull-gray, with which the malignant spiders of speculation had filled the machine shop of society, and by so doing has, though I admit, unintentionally, conferred benefits upon us incalculable for a long time to come. He has lived through this experience for us, and shown us that the natural fruits of indulgence in such a temper are dissonance, cynicism, irritability, and all uncharitableness. Accordingly, since his time the evil has lessened. With this warning before them, let the young examine