262 DISSIMILARITY THE BOND OF UNION. classifications of an encampment for the organism of a home. A man always among his equals is like the school-boy at his play; whose eager voice and disputatious claim and bold defiance of the wrong, and merciless derision of the feeble, betray that self-will is wide awake, and pity lulled to sleep. But see the same child in his home, and the genial laugh, the deferential look, the hand of generous help, the air of cheerful trust, show how, with beings above and beneath him, he can forget himself in gentle thoughts and quiet reverence. And so it is with us all. The world is not given to us as a play-ground or a school alone, where we may learn to fight our way upon our own level, and leave others scope for a fair race; but as a domestic system, surrounding us with weaker souls for our hand to succor, and stronger ones for our hearts to serve. If the one set of relations are needful for the formation of manly qualities, it is the other that gives occasion to the divine. And if, in our own day and our own class, the moral and intellectual elements of character have become completely and deplorably ascendant over the religious; if in our honor for truth and justice as realities, we have got to think all piety a dream; if life, in becoming a vigorous work, has ceased to be a holy worship; if its tasks are done and its mysteries forgotten, and in being occupied by our Will it is emptied of our God; if, in the better rule of our finite lot, we forget to serve its Infinite Disposer; it is, in part, because we live too exclusively with our equals. We associate with those DISSIMILARITY THE BOND OF UNION. 263 who think our thoughts, feel our feelings, live our life: we read the books which repeat our tastes, justify our opinions, confirm our admirations. The faith of Christ throws together the unlike ingredients which civilization had sifted out from one another. The moment a man becomes a disciple, his exclusive selfreliance vanishes; the rigid lines of his mere manly posture become softened; he trusts another than himself; he loves a better spirit than his own; and while living in what is human, aspires to what is divine. And in this new opening of a world above him, a fresh light comes down upon the world beneath him; the infinite glory of the heaven reveals the infinite sadness there is on earth. Standing no longer on his own level, as if that were all, he feels himself in the midst, between a higher existence to which he would attain, and a lower to which he would give help. Aspiration and pity rush into his heart from opposite directions; he forgets himself: the stiff strong footing taken by his will gives way; and he is mellowed into the attitudes of looking up and lifting up. These are the two characteristic postures of the Christian life. Some habitual association with the poor, the dependent, the sorrowful, is an indispensable source of the highest elements of character. If we are faithful to the obligations which such contact with infirmity must bring; if we gently take the trembling hand that seeks our guidance, and spend the willing care, and exercise the needful patience; why, it makes us descend into healthful depths 264 DISSIMILARITY THE BOND OF UNION. of sorrowful affection which else we should never reach; it first teaches us what it is to wear this nature of ours, and shows us that we have been men and have not known it. It strips off the thick bandages of self, and the grave clothes of custom; and bids us awake to a life which first reveals to us the death-like insensibility from which we are emerging. Yes; and even if we are unfaithful to our trust, if we have let our negligence have fatal way; if sorrows fall on some poor dependent charge, from which it was our broken purpose to shield his head; still it is good that we have known him, and that his presence has been with us. Had we hurt a superior, we should have expected his punishment; had we offended an equal, we should have looked for his displeasure; and these things once endured, the crisis would have been passed. But to have injured the weak who must be dumb before us, and look up with only the lines of grief which we have traced; this strikes an awful anguish into our hearts: a cloud of divine Justice broods over us, and we expect from God the punishment which there is no man to give. The rule of heavenly equity gathers closer to us than before; and we that had neglected mercy are brought low to ask it. Thus it is that the weak, the child, the outcast, they that have none to help them, raise up an Infinite protector on their side, and by their very wretchedness sustain the faith of Justice ever on the throne. Martineau. He who does not raise himself above the breastwork of his order, is no hero within it. An order, as such, makes only puppets. Be in thine own person more than thine order; and then thou wilt be the first to perceive, to avoid, and to amend its defects. Herder. In every man who is not an animal, in whom mind is more powerful than circumstances, there is something informing and spiritual that makes him different from all his fellows. Affection, love, grace, tenderness, down to shrewd sense, when native to the character, take forms as special and varied as those of Imagination or Creative Thought. It is found impossible to replace an ordinary friend; there is but one of the kind. Some of the plainest men one knows, made out of the commonest elements, are the most strongly marked with individuality, and defy imitation as much as Genius itself. Prospective Review. The whole function of the artist in the world is to be a seeing and feeling creature; to be an instrument of such tenderness and sensitiveness, that no shadow, no hue, no line, no instantaneous and evanescent expression of the visible things around him, nor any of the emotions which they are capable of conveying to the spirit which has been given him, shall either be left unrecorded, or fade from the book of record. It is not his business either to think, to judge, to argue, or to know. The work of his life is to be twofold only; to see, to feel. The thoughtful man is gone far away to seek; but the perceiving man must sit still, and open his heart to receive. 18 VOL. II. 266 THE SENTIMENTALIST. The thoughtful man is knitting and sharpening himself into a two-edged sword, wherewith to pierce. The perceiving man is stretching himself into a four-cornered sheet, wherewith to catch. he can expand himself, and which he can blanch himself, will not be enough to receive what God has to give him. And all the breadth to which all the white emptiness into An artist need not be a learned man; in all probability it will be a disadvantage to him to become so; but he ought, if possible, always to be an educated man: that is, one who has understanding of his own uses and duties in the world, and therefore of the general nature of the things done and existing in the world; and who has so trained himself, or been trained, as to turn to the best and most courteous account whatever faculties or knowledge he has. The mind of an educated man is greater than the knowledge it possesses; it is like the vault of heaven, encompassing the earth which lives and flourishes beneath it; but the mind of an uneducated and learned man is like a caoutchouc band, with an everlasting spirit of contraction in it, fastening together papers which it cannot open and keeps others from opening. Ruskin. Mrs. Jameson gives this as an analysis of the artistic nature; it is true of one class of men, though not of the highest artists. "Il ressent une véritable émotion, mais il s'arrange pour la montrer. "Beaucoup de gens alors, sont naturellement comédiens ; |