The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-07-29

HDmai convien che tn cost Il spoltre
Disse1 maestro. '-Ddnte.
r. saems to be received as an axiom, just now,
or,onp large class of critics, both literary and
oral. that perfection of moral beauty must
nos5s be in itself blemish, and render its pos
sessor embarrassing and unnatural. We do
not hold these truths, if truths they be, selfev-
dent, On the contrary, there appears to US,
IN our blindness, to be a close analogy between
moral beauty and most other kinds OF. beauty,
pbysical beauty included; and who but Pc
mlisrly barbarous barbarian could think the
Apollo Belvidere rendered more interesting or
more natural by hump back, baudy-legs, or q
kali modelled after that of a Flathead Indian?
In fact the very statement of the above doc
,riue involves a contradiction in terms. We
have seen great many good people, indeed, who
appeared to US too priggish, but never one who
appeared to us too perfect.
Az that ingenious and liberal moral philoso
pber and casuist, Increase Cotton, LII. D.,
teaches, however, while tits highly proper to have
sudgment of ones own, it would be rash and
runs counter to that of the public at any given
time because charity forbids us to doubt that
the public are always conscientious in forming
their judgments; and because a hundred, and
sill more million of heads are better than
one the case of the Hydra, and a very few
Others somewhat similar, being mythical and
altogether exceptional. 1t gives me pleasure,
therefore, to be able, gracefully bowling in this
matter to the opinion of the critics aforesaid,
to bespesk their interest and sympathy in and
with my hero, BY declaring that, at this period
Of his life, and perhaps to the end of it, be was
not perfect at all. Oh, that were able to con.
form myself to that further fictitious, not to say
fictitious, standard of taste, according to which,
Just as, though hemorrhsge from the nose,
howsoever ill-timed and distressing to the pa
tent, is comic, one from the lungs is poetical
and tragic; and an extrsvasstion of blood about
the heart is not inappropriate to the demise of
the most romantic civil hero, who would seem,
indeed, capable of escaping an earthly immor.
islity only by means Of pulmonary disease, or
some accident, unless bounced upon by some
convenient and imposing epidemic, while sim.
liar affection of the brain of an imaginary per-
sonage can be rendered affecting or excussble
only By a weight of years and virtues in the
patient; so certain moral diseases, alias sins.
= 10 actual life making the sinner by no means
peculiarly engaging, have in fiction acquired
prescriptive right to our regard / know how
much more picturesque, becoming, and appro.
pirate to the fair ideal of early manhood, are
the excuses of the bandit than the foibles of
the boy but, alas there is such a thing as
truth as well as conformity in the world, even
the world of novelists and truth, TO my vision
Of Herman--as he now rises before me, ont of
my inkstand, day by day, like the genie rising
out Of the casket, or the fair Lady of Avenel
out Of her well-compels me to own, on pain
Of having my sharp metallic pen fcrevermore
ranking ike a thorn il my conscience, that he
was scarcely more like bandit than was the
isr lady herself, and though beautiful, and in
his way grand in himself-whether can show
him SO by my tame sketch or not-beautiful
and grand, rather after the fashion of st. Mi
cbsel, than that of Satan writhing under his
feet. -
De had been, up to this time, one of those
stainless but somewhat whimsical spiritual
knights, who, for want of the inward foes which
their fine and lofty natures refuse to afford
them, and rot having heard as yet the trumpet
which calls them 10 fight an outward battle
with evil for their neighbors, are driven to fight
few spiritual windmills now and then. He
had inherited little of his mothers morbid,
Negative and spurious conscientiousness His
iashdiousness he carried almost as far as Con.
stance shat ia, almost to a sin but if he did
lock up the inner treasures of his nature, and
give psss-key to only three or four friends at
q lime, he did not frown on the rest of the
world, or push them roughly away from the
] Key hole, but hid it with smile, and treated
mem all the while to 80 much of his general
goodwin and urbanity, that they never imag
med how much he was all the while withhold.
ing from them. He had strong and burning
desire, by success in some art, to glorify less
bis God than himself. Instinctively and invs
nsbly kind as he was to all creatures weaker
than himself-women, children, and inferior an.
Inals-his temperament, from extreme sensi
hVeness, was irritable enough to give him much
more trouble than it was ever suffered to give
Ills neighbors and if anything mean or cruel
ESuid force itself upon his notice, he was ca.
PAbe of being extremely angry, though hith.
ertO he bad sinned not, and seldom let the sun
go down upon his wrath. He had, in cold blood,
great and overweening dislike to giving of.
fence to others, even in good cause; and when
he was grieved, as he still was too easily, though
rarely, ms mothers tears had not yet quite for.
sOuen their way up into his bright, dark eyes,
aOugh lew human eyes were suffered to see
"sm there. Notifying faults But he was
ashamed OF most of them, and struggled with
'ne@ all as fast as he found them out, as valiant
yas ne would have done With the more interest
ng Origand traits to which we have been al
1uing, II ne had had them to struggle with
We any OF US succeed in taking the king
I Oh heaven, as we are hidden to strive to do.
,0'ce, II must ba by resisting the temptations
b.s lave rather than those we have not. Ifhe
1Aa other faults, his friends could not find them
~: ano 1t Is curious psychological fact
ID some points of view rather fayora the
,ha a''ce OF hnmility and selfexamination, that
sS Oa' VINO honestly and secretly find the most
no,.. "i'n themselves, are commonly the very
Sun with whom others find the least.
A. as ne was, then, Clara knocked at his
e. ne came to it smiling, though not
,bsaaT ug and looking somewhat pale and di.
sba sl'sO' and stood holding it Hospitality open.
h. . .4gAs IN like moonheam and he rolled
e. 'tuoy chair for her up to one side of the