New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-03-20
FEyM.aLE LTTERa tn

Ai0n 70 AZ EoAaAS " h'otA - sis.5
FEAEagLE LITER-a1E
III letters and ID art, besides the absolute
beauty or merit attained, there is lively
secondary pleasure which all confess, when an
Unusual difficulty is felt to have been overcome.
Thus people are more delighted with a learned
blacksmith than with q philologist {no matter
how much more various or profound his knowl
edge) who has never Piled at the forge; thus tile
poetry Of Bloomfield Ga shepherd-boy) or OF
i Blacket "a cobler) took celebrity from the
fact, not that it was good, hut that folks as
illiterate as they should have ever written at
all: thus the amphibious verse Of him called
I. the water poet aylor the boatman) Or the
surprising dogrel Of John Jones, :. an old SER
vant,' = for time enchanted England, in the
days Of Dryden and Of Byron. The sense Of
this sort Of merit, which depends only on Sur
prise, is easy and almost universal while the
4 power to feel true, an absolute excellence, is
confined to few. Hence the glory Of pictures
painted with the toes, not the fingers the
charm Of large poems from which particular
II letter Of the alphabet is altogether banished ];
the exploits of conundrum makers; the con-
quests " StAiusSs WHO Lave StTetcneu tnelf poet
10 sway over 0
Il Some peaceful province in Acrostic land p
the reputation of 6 young Rosciuses'' and g in
FAINT Garricks,' K and Ito come to the point) the
| entire marvel of the authorship Of those, whose
| only title to be read is found in the fact that
their sex or some other strong impeachment for
babe them to write
The Mahometans have sort Of generation
for paper, and will not fling away even the
smallest bit Of it, because (say they) the name
of God might be inscribed ON it, 1t is 4 pity
that we have not among US some such pious
notion, or else taste enough TO consider what
proclamation it is to blur with folly the page
which should be sacred to Genius and Truth
Monet To write is at once to put oneself in
competition with all the past, and to challenge
the admiration of Ill the present and future.
There are those in abundance who will answer
shat they write with no such hope, with no such
wish, as to be famous This is, however, only
avowing that they can delight themselves with
even that very littleof renown which is to be *
pected from feeble performance Surely there
must go far more vanity. a nerer itch of ap
planse, to the publishing Of a hasty and paltry
work than Of the most finished Ii is probable
that the Ounce, who never corrects his first form
less conception is infinitely more charmed with
his own performance than the genius who re-
touches and perfects his bright imaginations.
with o taste that can never satisfy itself In
v word. the love Dc Praise --of benefttine others
and 50 deserving their praise-must ever be the
conscious or unconscious end for which we write.
flera A.
forth patltio ore, our senseless compositions,
as rapid, as GOLD, as hard and as cheap as the
machine that strikes out cut-nails or whether
we elaborate them year after year, with Watche
ings and HASTINGS and qualifications like those of
the visionary chemist of old, seeking at happy
conjunctions Of the stars or by the MD Of mighty
secrets, wrnng one after another from great
Nature herself, to perfect gold or the diamond
N to distil that rosy liquor which bestows per-
petual health and beauty-still it is but the |
same passion which animates the wit or tickles |
the shallow fancy of the blockhead The genius,
solicitous OF all that strength or grace can |
give to ennoble his work and fit it for immortality,
writes only for fame; the soribbler, from van
Ivy the fond hope Of catching a moments ap-
plause.
Since, then, all authorship, all longing to see |
ones self in print, must be resolved at last into
. despicable itch for notoriety, or into that |
great, that masculine, that infinitely stirring
and commanding impulse, the love Of Glory |
since to write badly is but to emerge into dis |
grace, and to write we'll. besides that it is al
most hopeless, is to forfeit the distinguishing |
honor Of their sex, we are totally unable to con