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Hiiuatttrt.
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Critics are not the legislators, but the...
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** The overworked Mind ;"—that is the pr...
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The new Westminster Review is a brillian...
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HAWTHORNE'S NEW ROMANCE. The miithcdale ...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Ar01905
Hiiuatttrt.
_Hiiuatttrt .
Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...
Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh iReview .
** The Overworked Mind ;"—That Is The Pr...
** The overworked Mind ; " —that is the pregnant title of an essay in the last number of Dr . Forbes _Wlvslow ' s Journal of Psychological Medicine , an essay that opens , but does not attempt to exhaust , the great subject , though it suggests important reflections to all whose way of life is full of the perils of oyer-work . Fearful as it is to see great intellects succumbing , and succumbing from the want of a little rational precaution ; yet , as Nicole said so finely to Arnauld , it is " better to wear out than to rust out ; and there are worse shipwrecks in life than thai . We die at least on the battle-field , our faces towards tha stars ! ¦ ur _^ _-- _x"U _ _l ry . i _~ ai _ _., _l il . .- * . l _ _ " « _i . Mi : _l .: _« , _»« . _ll ? 55 the whose friends lore that he is himself
Moreover , man dep " killing , " often bears that within him which would more ignobly kill him , if he did not throw himself impetuously into the intellectual struggle , and there , at least , withdraw his thoughts from the " Blue-heard chambers of his heart . " When Goethe lost his son , and when he lost one whom he loved almost as dearly—the Archduke—no man could read anything on that godlike , much-suffering face ; no man could perceive any considerable change , except that he " worked harder than ever . " Was not the over-work beneficent ?" In a medical point of view , and considering over-work purely as overwork , there can be no doubt as to its ruinous effect . Festina lente is our mo _' tto , here as everywhere—is it not Nature ' s own method ? The
overworked brain will not do the work of one more wisely treated . To treat it wisely , men should familiarize themselves with the general rules of physiology , and consider the brain as an organ having its functions like that of every other organ . Among the most serious mistakes into which men fall , is that of not giving the brain sufficient repose and sufficient variety , which is another form of repose . Intense and prolonged application to one subject is the root of all the mischief . As your body may be in activity during the whole of the day , if you vary the actions sufficiently , so may the brain work all day at varied occupations . Hold out a stick at arm ' s length for five minutes , and the muscles will be more fatigued than by an hour's rowing : the same principle holds good with the brain .
The New Westminster Review Is A Brillian...
The new Westminster Review is a brilliant and thoughtful one , and a decided improvement on the two previous numbers . Secular Education is treated in a high and dignified manner ; and although recent discussions have left little that is new to be said upon this subject , the writer says much that is needful to be iterated and re-iterated . He sternly reprimands the irreligious cry of " religion , " which is got U 2 > to oppose secular education by all the isms , which , as he says , " when closely examined , are embodiments of mere self-love , the love of dominion , bigotry , and all uneharitableness . " Why religious people should be aghast at the idea of secular education , will one day be a marvel to our descendants : it is an unconscious fear lest secular education should be found to suffice ; and that fear we regard as the most profound misconception of human nature , and the most unworthy conception of the great function of religion : it is a heresy we , with all our heterodoxy , cannot entertain !
Orthodoxy separates Religion from Science , instead of associating them ; and , as this writer says : — - " One effect of teaching religion _dissociated from science , and founding it on the Bible alone , bus been to produce a general unconsciousness that the 15 ook of Nature is truly a divine revelation calculated to guide human conduct . It is viewed by practical men as a repository of materials tia * realizing wealth , and by the rich us a source of polite amusement ; but by neither as embodying a code of rules for tho direction of conduct , each duty having its reward antl eaeh its penalty attached to it . And yet it is really such , antl only misdirection of our education prevents us from seeing this to be the case . "
Yet men wonder that Science , is " destructive , " and leads to " infidelity ! " They f orget that , granting ( iod wrote the Bible , yet assuredly he made the . world ; and if it be , perilous to discard ov misinterpret the one , there can be no question about the necessity of rightly understanding the other . A beautiful article follows , on England's Forgotten Worthies , wherein the adventurous deeds of our early voyagers are truly connected with a higher principle than that tif mere , excitement . The greatness of thut day , he clearly sees to have arisen from fait It—the powerful convergence of the whole being of man into one focus . We have lost it , and our scepticism makes us pigmies . We believe nothing , not even Christianity , wc only believe its " evidences . "
"We wonder af the grandeur , the moral majesty , of some of Shakespeare s characters , so far beyond what , the noblest among ourselves can imitate , and af lh ' st thought wc attribute it fo the genius of the , poet who has outstripped nature in his creations ; but , we are misunderstanding the power and the meaning of poetry in attributing creutiveness fo if in any hi \ c , 1 i sense . ; Shakespeare created , but only as tba Hpirit of nature created around him , working iu him as it . worked abroad ii * those among whom be lived . Tbe men whom be drawn were , such men as he saw and knew ; the words they utter were such as he heard in tbe ordinary conversations in which he joined . Af fhe Mermaid with _Kuleigb aud with Sidney , and at a thousand _un-iiained English firesides , he found the living originals for bis Prinet ) Hals , his Orlundos , his Antonios , his Portias , his Isabellas . The closer ] _K'i"KOiud acquaintance which we can form with the English of the age of Elizabeth , tho more w _« are satisfied that Shakespeare ' s ? great poetry is no more than the rhythmic echo ° f the life which it depicts . "
The New Westminster Review Is A Brillian...
The Future of Geology is very interesting and very able , marred , indeed , in its earlier pages , by an attempt at gaiety of style which does not lighten the subject , but full of suggestiveness and seriousness as it proceeds . The most eloquent , and one of the most subtle , of modern religious writers will be recognized in the powerful article on The Restoration of Belief . How truly he sees into our present condition in this passage : — " The more ingenuously the modern orthodoxy lays bare its essence , the more evident is it . that a profound scepticism not only mingles with it , but constitutes its very inspiration . The dread of losing God , the impression that there is but one patent way , not of duty , but of thought , of meeting him , haunt the minds of men , driving some to Anglicanism to compensate defect of faith hy excess of sacrament ; some to Home in quest of the Lord ' s body ; and prompting others to conservative efforts of Bibliolatry , conducted with ever-decreasing reason and declining hope . "
And the impossibility of the Church long continuing its present condition , is thus stated : — " It is the vainest of hopes , that a body of clergy , brought up to the culture of the nineteenth century , cau abide by the Christianity of the sixteenth or of the second : if they may not preserve its essence by translation into other forms of thought , they will abandon it , in proportion as they are clear-sighted and veracious ? , as a dialect grown obsolete . The number accordingly is constantly increasing , in every college capable training a rich intellect , of candidates for the ministry forced by their doubts into lay professions , and carrying thither the powerful influence , in the same direction , of learning and accomplishment . The higher offic es of education are , to no slight extent , in the hands of these deserters of the
church : and through the tutor in the family , or the master in the school , or the professor in the lecture-room , contact and sympathy are established between the best portion of the new generation and a kind of thought and culture with which the authorised theology cannot co-exist . College friendships , foreign travel , current literature , familiarise all educated young men with the phenomenon of scepticism , and in a way most likely to disenchant it of its terrors . Thus by innumerable channels it enters the middle class at the intellectual end of their life ; assuming in general the form of historic and critical doubt : while from below , from the classes bom and bred amid the whirl of machinery , and shaped in their very imagination by tbe tyranny of the power-loom , it pushes up in the ruder form of material fatalism . " There are several more articles , but these four are the most important , and suffice to make a valuable Review .
Hawthorne's New Romance. The Miithcdale ...
_HAWTHORNE'S NEW ROMANCE . The miithcdale Romance . By Nathaniel Hawthorne . 2 vols . Chapman and Hall . This is a mournful book , It fastens on you and will not relax its hold , but it leaves a grave sadness behind it unrelieved by touches of hope and enthusiasm , unmingled with any glimpses into a brighter future . It tells of shattered hopes , of wasted elforts , of enthusiasm breaking against reality , of love given hopelessly , and wasted for no good . The failure of a social scheme , begun in unrelenting enthusiasm , is but the prelude to the failure of three lives staking their all upon affection . Hawthorne was ill advised when he thus raked among the ashes of his heart for embers wherewith to warm his new romance . He once believed
in the possibility of a community living in a brotherhood of labour ; he joined others in the attempt to realize that scheme ; it was premature , it was unwise , it forgot essential conditions , and it failed . As an author , he w as right to turn this experience into material ; nothing but what we have actually experienced can become permanent material in literature . But he was wrong , we cannot help thinking , to treat it so . His failure should have taught him to evolve an appreciable moral , not simply to have furnished him with a local habitation for a love story . _Kither
Brook Farm should have been used seriously , or not used at ail . As he uses it we see nothing but the poor machinery of a novel , together with some sad and half contemptuous references to the failure of what was once his enthusiasm . Out of that failure what high encouragement , and what deep lessons a reflective mind might have evolved ; but he seems afraid to striking deep into the realities , and lets the occasion slip . There is but one good passage , and that has to us a certain tone half of sadness , half of sarcasm , which , while heightening the force of the remark , yet leaves an unpleasant impression behind it : —
" Ihe peril of our new way of life wa . s not lest wo should fail in becoming practical agriculturists , but that we should probably cease to he anything else . While our enterprise lay all in theory , we had pleased ourselves with delectable visions of the spirifualisation of labour . It was to bo our form of prayer and ceremonial of worship . Each stroke of the hoe was to uncover Home aromatic roof of wisdom , heretofore hidden from the sun . Pausing in the field , to let , the wind exhale the moisture from our foreheads , we were to look upward , and catch glimpses into the _fiir-off soul of truth . In this point of view , matters did not turn out , quite so well as we anticipated . It is very true that , sometimes , gazing casually around me , out of the midst of my toil , I used to discern a richer piefurcsqueness in the visible
scene of earth and sky . Then ; was , at such moments , a novelly , an unwonted aspect , on the face of Nature , as if she had been taken by surprise antl seen af unawares , with no opportunity to put oil" her real look , and assume the mark with which she mysteriously hides herself from mortals . Put , this was all . The clods of earth , which we so constantl y belaboured und turned over and over , _wvrv never _etbcrealised into thought . Our thoughts , on the contrary , wore fast b . coming cloddish . Our labour symbolised nothing , and left us mentally sluggish in the dusk of the evening . Intellectual activit y is incompatible with any large amount of bodily exercise . The yeoman and fhe scholar I lie yeoman anil Ihu man of finest moral culture , though not the man of sturdiest , sense antl integrity---arc two distinct individuals , and can never be melted or welded into one substance . "
Indignation , open scorn , any strong feeling would be preferable to this mournful glance cast over fhe illusion of his youth . If lie is speaking as a teacher , desirous to make us aware of the impracticable nature of a Community so founded , he is not explicit enough , strong enough , cogent enough ; if as a poet ho surveys his wrecked illusion , he is not feting enough . . Not , therefore , for its illustration of a , social attempt , is the lllithcdalc Itomancc to bo read , but for its stern truthful picture of the _sucrilicc of
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 10, 1852, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10071852/page/19/
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