The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1854-08-18
From the New Monthly Magazine.
The MiSerIeS of Reality.
"Expectation whirls me round;
Tn imaginary relish is SO sweet
That it enchants my sense"


of the young world which modern phlegmatists
presume TO denominate the fabulous ages. To have
died then would have been better than to live now !;
for methinks might nave left name alone whose
shadOwy existe nee should have been sweeter than
my present dull and lust 'eleSs vitality. When the
beautiful Helle fell from The golden -feeced ram
into the seu, since called the Hellespont, | might
perchance, (lor | am as stout swimmer as
Leander,) have supported her fainting oveIiness
10 the Propontc shure:-mght not have arrested
the flight of Cupid when the fatal curiosity of the
trembling Psyche shook the oil from her suspended
lamp and broke his slum5ers or have assisted
Arethusa in the OF Proserpine, when
"swarthy Dis tore her from the flowers that she
was gathering sin Enna's field, beside Pergusa's s
lake" and so have left my name to be entwined
with those rose-ke nymphs in the unfadng
wreaths of Poesy !-Of one thing am confident;
| should have joined the expedition Of the Argo-
nauts. My feet would have instnctively hurried
me 10 the sea shore,
When Hercules advanced with Hylas in his hand,
Where Castor and Pollux stood ready on the strand
And Opheus with his harp, and Jason with his sword
Gave the signal to the heroes they umpd board
for even now | have taken the same leap with my
imagination. feel myself shaking hands with he
warriors and demigods, the sons of Jupiter, Nep-
tune, Bacchus, and the winds, who formed the
glorious crew; | taste the banquet and hear the
music in the Cave of Chiron | see the enamored
Nalads stretching up their white arms TO pull the
blooming Hylas into their fountain as he stoops
to fill his vase; and feel myself partaker in
the adventures with the Harpies and Sirens,
and all the magic and mystery OF Medea and
the Golden Fleece. What a delicious perpetuity
of stimulus and excitement, when The unexpored
world not only continual novelty, offering
fresh nations and wiIc, wonders with every
new coast that was navIgated or country that
was explored, but supernatural prodigies. "Gor
- Il,
lished themselves in every lone mountain and
sequestered cave; and the woods, waves, and
fields were peopled with satyrs, fauns, and nymphs
while Vulnerable deities hoverngin in the elements
occasionally presented themselves to human vision
In those imaginative days the faculties of man kept
bounding from one enchantment to another. All
nature was ready-made poetry, and life itself the
very quntesSence OF vitality.
Oh, the contrast Of the present We have
passed through all the stages of civilization, and
arrived at the antiPodes of the fabulous the world
is in It's old age the fountain OF its young fancies
is as dry and dusty as turnPike-road. We have
fallen upon evil days. aye and upon evil tongues
too, for there is suicidal rage for destroy ing the
imaginat:ons Of our own youth, and degrading into
bald, hateful allegory all the poetic visions and
romantic illusions of the worlds infancy. 1t is a
dull, plodding, scientific, money getting, measuring
calculating, increduous, cold, phIegmaric, physical
age-a tangible world, limited to the proof of sense
"a horrible of fact. We have dragged up
Truth from the bottom of well, and looking
through her muddy spectacles, refuse to see any
thing beyond our nose. Ifitappears too startling
to aver that ignorance is bliss, can maintain.
from my own experience, that it is sometimes
misery 10 grow wise. With that awful wonder,
not untempcred by delight, have when boy, con-
templated Wi-o the wisp, Jack o -lanthorn,
especially il he performed his luminous minuet in
the vicinity of a church. yard and how intensely
was | interested in DR.. Shaw's account of the
mysterious iguiS f1teluS which attended his whole
company for above hour IN the valleys Of Mount
Ephraim, in the Holy Land not TO mention the
numerous ballads and stories Illuminated by the
presence of this ominous flame. Alas it never
appears to me now, and if il did, should only
recoIcct that one hasty philosopher has assured
me it is generated by purescence; another main
tains it to be gaseous and have the satisfaction
Of refectng that, under a modification, may
every night see those fine old mysterious person
ages, Jack and Will, imprisoned in a lamp, and
shedding their innocuous light upon the cutters of
Thames.street and PuddiDg-lane. Their near
relation, the fire, damp, the destructive agency Of
which, IN mines, has riveed my attention to many
a tale of terror, has, by another lamp. been rem
dered passive and uninfa mmable, that he now
takes fire nothing, and affords no materials for
sympathy or fear
Thunder and lightning have lost many of their
sublime associations, since have learnt the theory
of their production. Every theatre contains !
Samoneous-the electric fluid has been brought !
down from Heaven by a Prometheus in the shape
of kite, and have converted it into a
Plaything, bidding it stream from our knuckies at
the working of glass machine. Not content with |
familiarzing and degrading every thing that was
grandly rea we have utterly annihiIated all that
was strkingy iIlusory. As 10 the in the
moon, whose features | could once distinctly |
recognize, take it for granted that he has long
since been had up, or rather down, to Bow-street, +
and committed as a vagrant. The Patagonian
giants of Magellan, and the nine-feet high Tarta.
rians Of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, have no more
real existence than the Brobdignaggans OF Swift /;
and as to the "AnhropoPhagi and men whose
heads do grow beneath their shoulders cursed
good sense compels Us TO laugh at them as ridcu-
ous and unwarrantable fctons. Let no author
calculate on being able 10 invent any thing per-
nanenty supernatural and appalling; all his i'm.
possibilities will be realized, his mysteries familiar
zcd. Does the reader recollect the Spectre Boat
n Coleridgeis Ancient Mariners, or the Storm Ship
n Washington 1ryings story of Dolph. Heyliger,
which, TO the CONSERVATION of nautical eyes, was
cen poughing up the waves, at The rate OF ten
nors nn hour in dead calm, or sailing with great
clocty against the wind and tide, manilestly i'm.
elled in this preternatural manner by spectral or
Iabohc influencei These waiery apparitions have
os their ,errors; the boiling Of kettle has dis