famous roads and through whose opened gates are ever trooping her legions and tributaries, to and from the limits of her world-wide empire. Comus with his bacchanalian crew still tempts with artful cunning, and is still repelled by the pure-hearted lady who, strong in virtue, waits a certain rescue. The genius of mirth is always tripping by upon "the light fantastic toe," while her graver sister is ever moving forward with downcast eye and measured tread. In Shakspeare, Hamlet is always the same, with senses half paralyzed at the wrong he has suffered, and with mind perplexed that the times should be so "out of joint," and he be called to set them right; the gentle Ophelia is always wailing; the wronged Desdemona is ever sobbing out the disappointment of her crushed and broken heart; the injured but uncomplaining Cordelia, wonders at, but does not reproach her cruel sisters, and comforts as best she can, the distracted father whom their cruelty has murdered; Lady Macbeth stands in guilty horror pointing to the "damned spot" which will not "out" at her bidding; and ever as we gaze upon these forms, or hear the words of these creatures of the imagination, our flesh creeps with horror, our hearts are elated with joy, burn with indignation, or relax into weeping grief. What a world of living beings has Scott created, what personages has he called into life, what conversations do we hear from their lips, what stirring events are still wrought by their agency! Nay, more; he has carried these all into the real world and given them a perpetual habitation there. Old castles, and moors, and mountain-tops, and battle-fields, each have received from him the new inhabitants evoked by his genius, so that when the traveler visits them it is not alone the ruined wall, nor the bare mountain, nor the unruffled lake that he sees; but here the royal retinue seems to group itself around the "maiden queen," within the ruined castle of Kenilworth; there Roderick's clan springs up, one by one, each from behind a concealing rock, and there the Lady Ellen pushes out her light canoe. How has Burns by his wondrous touch turned the house of every Scottish peasant into an abode of content, and love and piety, and every simple Scottish lass into a fairy being, and as a reward for the glory which he gave to his beloved Scotia, has made for his poems in the actual homes of Scotland, a place next to the Bible, and a warm and thrilling remembrance in every living Scotchman's heart! To hold intercourse with such creations, if the scenes be innocent and the transcripts are made from nó vicious and degrading realities, cannot be unfavorable to pure and elevated moral feeling, even if there be no moral to the tale or poem and no religious enforcement of its lessons. It is at least an invigorating use of the powers to occupy them with such creations of the lofty or humorous imagination. We are prepared to assert that not only is the so-called imaginative literature useful in its influence, but that all literature whatever finds its principal power to elevate, in the culture and stimulus which it furnishes to the imagination—that literature as such as distinguished from that use of letters which adds to scientific knowledge or aims at conviction, i. e. literature in the most of its forms, is chiefly valuable for what it does for the imagination by enlarging its range, elevating its ideals, stimulating its aims, and purifying and ennobling its associations. To decry the imaginative faculty and its products is to decry all literary culture if not to abrogate culture of every kind. Let all this be granted says the objector or inquirer. But what if the scenes are vicious, the sentiments false, and the passions are sensual, malignant, and degrading? The answers to these and kindred questions must be reserved for further discussion. 1 CHAPTER VIII. IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE: ITS REPRESENTATIONS OF IN our last we had reached the Moral Influence of Books and Reading, and in discussing this were brought to the questions so often mooted of the moral influence of the so-called works of the imagination. We attempted the defence of such works in the general, by citing examples from writers to whom all men pay a willing homage. Our discussion was arrested by the half-inquiry, half-objection: "What if the scenes are vicious, the sentiments are false, and the passions are sensual, malignant, or degrading? Can it be morally healthful that one should be conversant with such pictures, thoughts, and feelings, especially if armed with double energy, and clothed with dangerous fascinations by the power of genius? Would you have your son or your daughter excited by the scenes, infatuated by the characters, or tempted by the words of Byron, Moore, Bulwer, Goethe, or even of many that they find in Shakspeare, Milton, Burns, and Scott? In the works of every one of these writers, I can point you to many passages that should never be presented to a pure and virtuous mind. The very contact with them must involve some soil or taint, if it does not impart corruption. To entertain them in any form, to suffer them to confront the imagination, or to glide before the eye of the mind even for an instant, is to be debased and polluted, and towards them one should have no other feelings than aversion and disgust, however splendid or powerful is the genius that gilds or glorifies them." This is partly true and partly false. What is true is The moral evil very true, and what is false is very false. "There is some soul of goodness in things evil, The ground of moral exposure is not the fact that evil is painted, nor that it is painted boldly; but it is in the manner in which it is represented,—whether with fidelity to the ordinances of nature, or falsely to her eternal laws as written on the heart of man. This will be determined in a great measure by the man whose imagination reflects and recreates the evil, according as he writes like a Christian, or writes like a Turk-like a man with a conscience and a moral nature, or like a man who makes his passions his conscience, and his will his God. Prof. F. W. Newman, solidly observes, "In poetry, as in all other writings, the moral influence depends on its throwing our sympathies aright and leaving on the mind fit images and contemplations. Many darker passions may be portrayed: for the pathos which we seek has a two-fold character like the sublime and beautiful, viz: the terrible and the lovely. While we shudder at evil passion, it cannot make us worse. Demoralization begins, when we learn to sympathize with it, or to dwell upon things over which it is healthful to step lightly."-Lectures on Poetry, i. This difference between the two methods of depicting evil will be obvious by one or two examples. Satan, as described by Milton, is well known to most readers. He is justly conceived and nobly painted. He is not a being who is low and offensive because degraded and brutish, but an archangel ruined, once possessed of the intellect and heart of a seraph, now blasted by bad ambition and consumed by unrelenting pride. Every feature is consistent with this conception. His will is as inexorable as that of Prometheus nailed to the Caucasian rock. The hatred is intense, steadying the powers by unrelenting determination, not distracting or weakening them by impotent rage. The cunning is masterly, yet dignified. The passion burns like a red-hot furnace, and the words speak out the inner soul with the energy of a fierce north-wester. "Better reign in Hell than serve in Heaven," utters and describes his character and ruling principle. Had Milton painted Satan thus and only thus, he had given but half his being, as well as glorified him with splendors too attractive for the responsive tastes of many readers. But he did not leave him thus, for his truthful insight taught him, that thus described and only thus, he were no real fiend—no conceivable being of any species, but simply the half of an incomplete conception-a monster by defect. He therefore makes him confess his agony in such words as "Me miserable! which way shall I fly In the presence of his old compeer, Zephon, severe in steadfast allegiance and white with unstained purity :— "Abashed the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is, and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: saw and pined His loss; but chiefly to find here observed His lustre impaired-yet seemed Undaunted." |