TRUTHFULNESS. BY LEILA. THE study of human character is a life study, one made only by long, long years of experience, purchased by bitter disappointments. Though much is learnt by phrenology, much by physiognomy, yet both fail to read and know the true feelings that throb in the heart. It requires many attributes to make a character good, and among the chief of these stands truth. A virtue great and noble, yet it is one oftentimes wanting. The high, pure virtue is laid aside; falsehood, with its satelites, deceit, equivocation, insincerity, and many more, destroy it— warps the purer traits, varnishes the golden attribute. Truth is like a rare exotic, it requires the greatest care and attention to preserve it, or else the blasting winds of a truthless world would soon destroy it; and the rank weeds of insincerity and deceit spring up, unless carefully and assiduously kept under, to choke the beautiful but frail flower. Naturally we all have a tendency to diverge a little from the truth, perhaps a word, some trifle, and we think it no harm; and if for a moment the thought arises that it was wrong, we still it by the oft-repeated, oft-thought ideaconventionality necessitated it. So again falsehood tramples upon truth, by the falsity of the excuse, for did we but analyze the true reality of our motive, should we not find it was the want of moral courage, the fear that, had we spoken the truth, we should have lost some worldling's empty praise of being agreeable. We know the old saying, "Continual droppings wear away stones." Thus is it with truth and falsehood; the latter from time to time in the end has the same effect, and the great and glorious virtue, truth, is worn away. If once we give way to the trivial prevarication, too surely we do so again and again; and if once we take the downward road, the momentum carries us swiftly on to the end, and that end destruction. Few things require so much courage as truth, to be really and essentially true, fearless of man's censure, of a world-wide frown; and yet, however much outwardly the truthful person may be abused, inwardly those very abusers, in spite of themselves, admire and trust. Into the inner chambers of our hearts-those chambers none, not even our dearest friend, have ever penetrated—God looks, and from thence emanate noble virtues, ignoble vices; the seeds of both there lie, stored and garnered-the lovely flowers of good, the poisonous ones of wickedness. With some, their few good ones are made much of, for the eyes of an outward, seeing world; while the many bad still grow and flourish, but are kept from sight; yet, while they deceive others, they deceive themselves. Rest and peace are not the gifts of man; from God alone they come, and He sees those hidden, inner things. Not by the outward, but the inward actions, thoughts, and motives doth He judge and reward. Surely we too often forget this, or else more carefully should we guard each idea, each thought of our hearts. Ah! there is something great, something that lifts the mind above the sordid littleness of a flattering world, in truth: a character in which this trait is fully developed is grand and noble; like the waters of a mighty river it carries all before it, and the little streams of taunt and sarcasm, which ever and anon flow into it, are lost-swallowed up in the greatness of its sublime grandeur. THE LAUREATE'S LAST EFFORT. "Pictoribus atque Poetis. Quidlibet audendi potestas." MACAULAY, in that masterpiece of remorseless criticism, every word of which is a bitter sting to the hapless poet who is unlucky enough to fall under the lash, introduces the following apologue, taken from a collection of Eastern Fables. As it forms no inapt prelude to the subject we are going to treat of, let our readers bear with us for a moment while we relate it. Thus runs the fable: A pious Brahmin made a vow that on a certain day he would sacrifice a sheep, and on the appointed morning sallied forth to purchase one. There lived in the neighbourhood three parlous rogues, who had got scent of his purpose, and laid a scheme for profiting thereby. The first met him and said: "Oh, Brahmin, wilt thou buy a sheep? I have one fit for sacrifice." "It is for that very purpose," quoth the holy man, "that I am come forth this day." Then the impostor opened a bag, and brought forth an unclean beast, an ugly dog, lame and blind. Thereon the Brahmin cried out: "Wretch, who touchest things impure, and utterest things untrue! callest thou that a sheep?" "Truly," answered the other, "it is a sheep of the finest fleece, and of the sweetest flesh. Oh, Brahmin, it will be an offering most accept able to the gods." "Friend," said the Brahmin, "either thou or I must be blind." Just then one of the accomplices came up. "Now praised be the gods," said he, "that I have been saved the trouble of going to the market for a sheep! This is such a sheep as I wanted. For how much wilt thou sell it ?" 66 When the Brahmin heard this, his mind waved to and fro, like one who swings in the air at a holy festival. Sir," said he to the new comer, "this is no sheep but an unclean cur." drunk or mad!" "Let us ask this man," said the Brahmin, "what the creature is, and I will stand by what he says." To this the others agreed, and the Brahmin cried out: "Oh, stranger, what dost thou call this beast?" "Surely, oh, Brahmin," said the knave, "it is a fine sheep." * "Enoch Arden," etc., by Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., Poet Laureate. Then said the holy man: "Surely the gods have taken away my senses;" and he asked pardon of him who carried the dog, and bought it for a measure of rice and a pot of ghee, and offered it up to the gods, who being wroth at his unclean sacrifice, smote him with a sore disease in all his joints. The moral of this, as says the great essayist, lies simply npon the surface; it cautions the reader against believing implicitly in a book because one or two or more may conspire to puff it, and sing its praises "ore rotundo." The world has run away with the idea-and when once the world has run away with an idea, it is like unto a very restive steed, with the bit in his mouth, and will listen neither to rhyme nor reason-the world has suddenly run away with the idea that there lives but one poet, and that his name is Alfred Tennyson. With great scorn does the world look down upon the abject humbug who ventures to assert the claims of any rival, be he ever so worthy of a poet's name and fame: sing he sweetly as the fabled swans in Strymon's stream, he must not dare to lift up his head when such an effulgent being as the Laureate is near. Talk to me, says the world, of your Longfellows, of your Brownings, your Buchanans, and your Milnes! they are but sorry idiots compared to our glorious Tennyson any fool can understand them, and follow their meaning; there isn't the slightest mystery about them at all. Seeing that things are so, it would not be unbefitting to inquire, ere that we come to the work under notice, on what grounds Mr. Tennyson has attained the giddy height of this world's popularity?—why it is that every lover of poetry, who has any taste, must swear by him, and place in him his allegiance, to the utter detriment of others? Imprimis, it cannot be denied that Mr. Tennyson is fashionable. It is the thing, the ton, to admire him; and the more mystic he is, the more fashionable he becomes. Now, I humbly submit to my readers whether good Dame Fashion has it not all her own way in this present day. Does she not hold beneath her iron, cruel sway thousands of thousands of trembling, palpitating subjects, afraid to move, afraid to speak, breathe, otherwise than she commands? Do not her cruel mandates now bid refined intellectual people gaze into a crystal ball, and fancy that therein they see their own future life tanquam in speculo?-now drive England's daughters, lovely blooming girls, to the Fire-god Moloch, there to be burnt slowly to death in their shroud of crinoline, with no hand to help, no possibility of escape from the fearsome death. Fickle as the wind is this imperious dame; not long does she smile upon any one votary. At one time, her kindly patronage is extended to a rope-walker, who calmly balances himself at a dizzy height, above the gaping crowd; at another, she smiles patronizingly upon a popular preacher, who, because he has a tolerable voice and is fashionable, becomes the idol of the hour. What need for me to enlarge upon the theme? Surely it is suffi ciently plain to all, even to the wretched votaries themselves, wishing to tear themselves away from the thrall, yet afraid to make the effort. "Yes, very foolish," say they, "very wicked; but then it is fashionable." Very foolish, very unhealthy, for ladies to encase themselves in surging billows of crinoline, which is of no earthly good but to sweep the mud from off the pavement, and indecently expose what should be modestly concealed; very wicked, doubtless, to go and see Blondin risk his life for our amusement, but then it is exciting and every one goes; very foolish to pin one's faith to a preacher, because he has a large chapel, and it is the very best place to see and be seen in all London, but then every one goes from the Peer to the humble Commoner; very misjudged, no doubt, to rave and rant of Mr. Tennyson's mystic productions, but every one raves about him, and he is the most fashionable poet we have. Fashion then, has dictated that the Laureate shall be considered a great poet, a mighty master of English poesy, and dares any abject demurrer with scorn to dispute her fiat. Again, there is another reason why this poet is popular--he is very mystic, and the people, on the principle of "omne ignotum pro mirifico,” elevating every little mysterious nonsense into something of the greatest import, will praise what they cannot understand. Some wise men have told us that the simpler a thing is, the better adapted to the comprehension of all intellects, the better is it. Of course, these were old world wiseacres, and not to be placed in the same category as Tupper and the modern philosophers. We humbly submit to these philosophers, whether there may not be such a thing as losing one's way, and wandering from the every-day plain region of sense, into the mistier, more dignified region of non-sense. Perhaps they would kindly consider the following lines, culled at random from "Alymer's Field," and tell us what the pearl is that lies hid in such tangled weed: "And how should Love, Whom the cross-lightnings of four chance-met eyes Such dear familiarities of dawn?" Now, what can the "familiarities of dawn" mean? Have they any affinity to the "Peep of Day?" They seem rather to suggest the idea of Dicken's winds, which took unto themselves other winds, and made a night of it in the Red Sea, and as their friendship over their airy cups grew warmer, became familiar towards dawn. Thus much for Mr. Tennyson's mysticism. There is another point. why he is liked generally; the very simple reason is that there is no other very great poet to rival him in England. Browning partakes too much of the Laureate's own character, particularly in mystery. Buchanan has not yet made a name. Owen Meredith, though promising mighty things, has fallen miserably from his high estate by the mere publication of such an abject thing as "Lucille," the sense of which is swallowed up in mystery, and the poetry only pleasing to those critics whose ears reVI. O 2 |