Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/327

1858.] into the air before the astonished passer-by,—silver-footed, diamond-crowned, rainbow-scarfed,—from the bosom of that fair sheet, sacred to the hymns of quiet batrachians at home, and the epigrams of a less amiable and less elevated order of reptilia in other latitudes.

Who was that person that was so abused some time since for saying that in the conflict of two races our sympathies naturally go with the higher? No matter who he was. Now look at what is going on in India,—a white, superior "Caucasian" race, against a dark-skinned, inferior, but still "Caucasian" race,—and where are English and American sympathies? We can't stop to settle all the doubtful questions; all we know is, that the brute nature is sure to come out most strongly in the lower race, and it is the general law that the human side of humanity should treat the brutal side as it does the same nature in the inferior animals,—tame it or crush it. The India mail brings stories of women and children outraged and murdered; the royal stronghold is in the hands of the babe-killers. England takes down the Map of the World, which she has girdled with empire, and makes a correction thus:. Dele. The civilized world says, Amen.

Do not think, because I talk to you of many subjects briefly, that I should not find it much lazier work to take each one of them and dilute it down to an essay. Borrow some of my old college themes and water my remarks to suit yourselves, as the Homeric heroes did with their melas oinos,—that black, sweet, syrupy wine (?) which they used to alloy with three parts or more of the flowing stream. [Could it have been melasses, as Webster and his provincials spell it,—or Molossa's, as dear old smattering, chattering, would-be-College-President, Cotton Mather, has it in the "Magnalia"? Ponder thereon, ye small antiquaries, who make barn-door-fowl flights of learning in "Notes and Queries"!—ye Historical Societies, in one of whose venerable triremes I, too, ascend the stream of time, while other hands tug at the oars!—ye Amines of parasitical literature, who pick up your grains of native-grown food with a bodkin, having gorged upon less honest fare, until, like the great minds Goethe speaks of, you have "made a Golgotha" of your pages!—ponder thereon!]

Before you go, this morning, I want to read you a copy of verses. You will understand by the title that they are written in an imaginary character. I don't doubt they will fit some family-man well enough. I send it forth as "Oak Hall" projects a coat, on a priori grounds of conviction that it will suit somebody. There is no loftier illustration of faith than this. It believes that a soul has been clad in flesh; that tender parents have fed and nurtured it; that its mysterious compages or frame-work has survived its myriad exposures and reached the stature of maturity; that the Man, now self-determining, has given in his adhesion to the traditions and habits of the race in favor of artificial clothing; that he will, having all the world to choose from, select the very locality where this audacious generalization has been acted upon. It builds a garment cut to the pattern of an Idea, and trusts that Nature will model a material shape to fit it. There is a prophecy in every seam, and its pockets are full of inspiration.—Now hear the verses.

O for one hour of youthful joy!

Give back my twentieth spring!

I'd rather laugh a bright-haired boy

Than reign a gray-beard king!

Off with the wrinkled spoils of age!

Away with learning's crown!

Tear out life's wisdom-written page,

And dash its trophies down!

One moment let my life-blood stream

From boyhood's fount of flame!

Give me one giddy, reeling dream

Of life all love and fame!

—My listening angel heard the prayer,

And calmly smiling, said,

"If I but touch thy silvered hair,

Thy hasty wish hath sped."