Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1856-04-05

images. Summer departs as surely in
the order Of the mind as in the order of
the seasons. AS in the year we cannot
sec it pass away without regret, neither
can we in the life. Every mind of any
thought becomes reflective at this change.
The passing from the prime of life into
its maturity, is transition at once Sc
rious and exciting. Hitherto we looked
only onward, and our life by hope was in
the future; henceforth, we shall look most
ly backward, and our life by memory will
be in the past At this point, We stop
to pause and muse. We feel with the
young while going out of youth and we
claim to mediate with the old without
realizing age. Passion adds force to
thought; thought gives dignity to pas
sion. Passion, thought and fancy, come
together, and are made in Imagination all
compact This, perhaps, is the time in
our nature when there is most of interest,
and even most of romance when there
are the most suggestive contrasts and
minglings between shadows and the lights
of our existence. 1t is a time of ques-
tioning. Problems, doubts, difficulties
beset us, which before we had not expe-
rience to estimate, or calmness to ponder,
and which after this, we must solve or
lay aside. 1t is time of satire. Much
later satire becomes rcpulsiye. What in
the mature may be merely critical seems
in II graver age to be misanthropic.
From the old we expect counsel and not
ridicule; not wit, but wisdom. An old
satirist is almost as odious as an old SEN
sualist. This transition-time Shakespeare
has embodied in such plays as " Hamlet
and I" As You Like It," Both are
pregnant with the metaphysics and criti-
cism of life as keenly in Touchstone at
the lowest extreme, as in the royal think
or at the highest; while some qualities
of each are found in the contemplative
jacques, who in character as well as in
condition occupies middle ground be-
tween them
And so we come to autumn with its
ripe fruitage, It's painted woods; with its
swollen torrents, its gorgeous and its
gloomy skies, with its diflusive inspira-
ton, which makes it seem as if all nature
were rapt in thinking; with its living
stiffness which acts upon the soul like
music. 1t was in such season of the
mind that Shakespeare gave us " Othello''
and Macbeth" Shakespeare had no
winter of years; for he died while his
autumn was yet full nor does it appear
that he had any winter of the heart.
If l find an analogy of winter in the
order Of his genius, it is only in that
which is most pleasing or most grand in
winter There is an indoor winter
when the wind rattles in the easements.
and the rain or snow beats against the
glass; and we hear the dirges of troubled
spirits in the air; then it is that we re-
fresh the fire, and trim the light, come
together in friendly group, and long
wlstfully for song and story. From the
quiet seriousness OF Shakspeare's later
mind, we have in correspondence with
these instincts, the wild romance of
"Cymbeline," the august supernatural
ism of 1.-The Tempest, y and the delight
full adventures Of The Winters Tale. "
But there is also an outdoor winter: in
which we come directly in contact with
its darkness, its storms, its terrors, and
its powers. This is the winter that we
meet in the sterner exercise of Shaks-
peare's later genius in +" Coriolanus"-
in "Timon Of Athens" in Lear y
in the desolation of pride; in the rage
! of scorn; in the fury Of the will in the
collected hurricane of all griefs, madness,
passion, only exhausted in the exhaus-
ton of misery and Of life.
Perhaps it is in most fitting conssten-
cy with the relations Of Shakspeare's
genius to humanity that the individual,
Shakespeare, should not be better known
There are certain relations in which the
personality Of man enters essentially
into his work in which character is a
part Of his power 1t is 50 with the
orator We want the man, the man him
self, in bis word and, if we find he is
not in it, his word is hollow. We look
for personal belief, for personal conyic-
ton, and without them, the finest efu-
sion is but windy rhetoric. We seek for
the proof in the individual life. xvi
dence Of libcrtinism would take grandeur
even from the sermons of Bossuct; and
proof Of yenality would leave the thunder
Of Demosthenes without a bolt. The
eloquencc of Robcspierre only chills and
disgusts. 1t is with the man of action
as with the man Of speech. We con
Germ ourselves with the motives Of a
statesman as well as with bis measures
we determine his motives by our impress
sion Of his character, and we gain our
impressions of his character by what we
learn Of his deeds. The measures, how
/ ever Just, wise, or useful, have but
temporary interest: the interest which is
immortal is in character. The character
Of Caesar is now Of more interest than
all the Roman laws from Numa to JUS
tinian. The character Of Cromwell 50
maintains its Interest in history, that it
is ever a fresh subject for investigation.
Men il is probable will always be alive
to enquiries on the character of Napo-
leon; and they will never come to a de-
cision. Tho character Of Washington
is greater power in the world than the
revolution which Washington conducted
Its power is greater in the fact that,
no discussion of its truth, its unselfish-
ness and its purity. All such men have
to us most Of their reality in their indi-
vidualism : it is by this they live as po-
tencies in time and by this VIC recog-
nize their agencies on earth. But men,