New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1842-12-22
We know lis walls OF thorny vinea
Its glades Of reedy gran
It's safe and silen! islands
Within fhe dark nOress-

shall future generations, when they ask tor PIC
lures of our prairies and forests, when civilized
man stood upon their skirts, claiming but not pos
sessing them, all filed with American feeling and
American life-turn TO BRYANT, and they de-
light in his vivid and beautiful descriptions, de-
clare that he had at once the love of American
/ Nature and American Society-the genius of soli-
tude and the genius Of the age.
| The ARTIST, too, never arrives at works that
touch the soul by their beauty unless he has been
made TO hold communion with the source of great
ideas. Visions of beauty from the regions of the
ideal world must fash across his dreams, and
power frorn above must guide his hand to repro
duce them.
Blu. why speak Of the Artist, the Poet, the Phi
losopher, or the Hero? No man lives for himself
alene, and no man lives Of himself alone. We
all are brolhers-all bondsmen for one ano-
Their. Humanity is complex whole from which
no individual can separate himself. The Heroes
Of the time are the representatives of the race in
the mighty Congress Of Humanity; but we all are
| free of tha ci,y'-shaters of It's wealth-partners
of its brotherhood. We stand between two eter-
nites-heirs of all ages, bound to the future =
there is not one on whom the light of the past
does not rest-not one with whom the spirit Of the
age refuses to hold converse. By it cheer
ed, instructed warned From 1t we derive strength.
| If animated by it, we look forward with hope; II
quickened by relation to it, life shall stand
firm as the Alps or flow with the strength of self
moving waters.
If greatness springs not from individual power
but from associated mind, if Heroes, Phllanthro-
! psts, and Poets are creatures OF the invisible
Spirit of the age, may inquire into the reality
| of that Spirit and seek to know it in its own
| sphere of existence. If Individual man, in his re-
lation to it, is but as the rose the Sum- reflect
| 1;1bf bur ye
To it moving with power over the Earth and
manifesting itself at the same time in different
| places remote from each other. And 1t IS 3d.
| How often do men contend for the honor of inven
| tions-and countries too, Germany and England,
Leibnitz and Newton, each claims the honor of hav-
ing invented the differential calculus. But the
| truth u.s. the discovery was made by neither The
Spirit Of the Age whispered il in an undertone In
The twilight Of the Eighteenth Century; and New
ton and Leibnitz alone, bending their ear, caught
,s accents and both at once gave it uttcrance
| among men. At Paris they are building an obser.
vatory-and the Bourbcns invite Philosophers TO
empt electricity from the clouds. At about that
zane time in the fields of America, runaway
Printers apprentice grown to manhood, went oul
with no companion he supposed but his son;
but the invisible Spirit of the age went forth to
the fields as his guide, and fastened for him the
hempen striHg-aRd waited his kite among the
thunder. clouds, and as he bent down reverentally
20 touch his knuckle to the key, the Spirit of the
Age broke forth in voice like the tempest and
proclaimed to the world that FRANKLIN had drawn
lightning from the clouds! How often do hlsto-
rams endeavor to decide between rivals-as who
first suggested Congress of American Colonies,
or who first proposed the declaration of 1ndepend-
ence 1t is as though the trees Of the forest
should dispute which first quickened It's buds into
life and put forth its glossy leaves, when the Sea-
sons and the Sun and the Earth, as it moved in
its heavenly path, have renewed the freshness OF
them all
Srill more do we notice the influence of this
| Spirit on masses of men and on nations, So that
heir actions and works appear to spring from
| higher life behind the life of the individual agents
and workers. All antiquity is full of Illustrations
| Look at the Middle Age, when Christianity lnva.
ded the forests of the North and subdued the bar
oarous nations At her bidding savage hands pre-
| pared their offerings and Duilded temples to the
God they were taught to worship Then rose the
towers of Pisa, and Milan, of Strasbourg and Vi
emma, of York and Salisbury In the hearts OF
these men moved the Spirit of the Age and bu'lded
| these creations through them.
The same result mig bit be traced in reference to
the American Revolution. 1t was the work act OF
one man, but the child of the ge. Parliament was
MES and where should America fad relief? The
Spirit of the Age pointed out them the way
and helped them 70 resist the despotism of Great
Britain. 1t took counsel with the religious Spirit
of the previous Century, both immortal, ana
learned how it migt elevate the popular power and
vet preserve order. 1t even entered the closets OF
the metaphysican in the nists o; Scotland and
| compelled him to seek the truth in the oracies OF
| common sense. II sought out tho moral'st and
enioined upon him TO believe virtue reality. 1t
entered into Political Economy, and Adam Smith,
the very year of independence, made q protest
against the restrictive commercial system OF the
past. 1t mingled, companion with the no.
ohty of the continent of Europe and when to
Lafayette, the volunteer, the American Commits
sloners made answer, eve are TOO poor to give
build vessel for myself" 1t prompted Chatha n
to.defend Reform in Parliament; and kept watch
over the true hero of Bunker Hill-the brave
Prescott, upon the nights OF Charlestown. 1t en-
tered the forests of Geneva, and Emanuel Kant,
the greatest reasoner Of his century, asserted for
Society its right TO Progress-and called upon men
10 advance from state of imperfection 10 one
higher and better. 1t in, pred Schiller and breattsd
through himlines of such deep and thrilling power
rs have since reached ali through the race. And
where you wosld expect it least, Music grew to
new perfection os Beethoven, shut out from the en-
JoSment OF his own conpositionS, sought 10 en-
body in sound his conceptions of love for universal
man.
But these Spirits of the Age---are they immor-
tai Do they live for ever, or are they the child
rea of time and doomed to die as centuries roll
on? The spirit of an age is for the time the liv-
ing essence Of Humanity and cannot be ennihi-
lated. II is a unity, and does not exist in fras-