FullReads

Footnote:[1] We have not noticed his iterativeness, his reiterativeness, because it flowed naturally from his primary qualities. In speaking it was effective, and to us pleasing, because there was some new modulation, some addition in the manner, just as the sea never sets up one wave exactly like the last or the next. But in his books it did somewhere encumber his thoughts, and the reader’s progress and profit. It did not arise, as in many lesser men, from his having said his say–from his having no more in him; much less did it arise from conceit, either of his idea or of his way of stating it; but from the intensity with which the sensation of the idea–if we may use the expression–made its first mark on his mind. Truth to him never seemed to lose its first freshness, its edge, its flavor; and Divine truth, we know, had come to him so suddenly, so fully, at mid-day, when he was in the very prime of his knowledge and his power and quickness–had so possessed his entire nature, as if, like him who was journeying to Damascus, a Great Light had shone round about him–that whenever he reproduced that condition, he began afresh, and with his whole utterance, to proclaim it. He could not but speak the things he had seen and felt, and heard and believed; and he did it much in the same way, and in the same words, for the thoughts and affections and posture of his soul were the same. Like all men of vivid perception and keen sensibility, his mind and his body continued under impressions, both material and spiritual, after the objects were gone. A curious instance of this occurs to us. Some years ago, he roamed up and down through the woods near Auchindinny, with two boys as companions. It was the first burst of summer, and the trees were more than usually enriched with leaves. He wandered about delighted, silent, looking at the leaves, “thick and numberless.” As the three went on, they came suddenly upon a high brick wall, newly built, for peach-trees, not yet planted. Dr. Chalmers halted, and looking steadfastly at the wall, exclaimed most earnestly, “What foliage! what foliage!” The boys looked at one another, and said nothing; but on getting home, expressed their astonishment at this very puzzling phenomenon. What a difference! leaves and parallelograms; a forest and a brick wall!

What, for instance, can be finer in expression than this? “It is well to be conversant with great elements–life and death, reason and madness.” “God forgets not his own purposes, though he executes them in his own way, and maintains his own pace, which he hastens not and shortens not to meet our impatience.” “I find it easier to apprehend the greatness of The Deity than any of his moral perfections, or his sacredness;” and this–

“One cannot but feel an interest in Ishmael, figuring him to be a noble of nature–one of those heroes of the wilderness who lived on the produce of his bow, and whose spirit was nursed and exercised among the wild adventures of the life he led. And it does soften our conception of him whose hand was against every man, and every man’s hand against him, when we read of his mother’s influence over him, in the deference of Ishmael to whom we read another example of the respect yielded to females even in that so-called barbarous period of the world. There was a civilization, the immediate effect of religion, in these days, from which men fell away as the world grew older.”

That he had a keen relish for material and moral beauty and grandeur we all know; what follows shows that he had also the true ear for beautiful words, as at once pleasant to the ear and suggestive of some higher feelings:–“I have often felt, in reading Milton and Thomson, a strong poetical effect in the bare enumeration of different countries, and this strongly enhanced by the statement of some common and prevailing emotion, which passed from one to another.” This is set forth with great beauty and power in verses 14th and 15th of Exodus xv.,–“The people shall hear and be afraid–sorrow shall take hold on the inhabitants of Palestina. Then the dukes of Edom shall be amazed–the mighty men of Moab, trembling shall take hold of them–the inhabitants of Canaan shall melt away.” Any one who has a tolerable ear and any sensibility, must remember the sensation of delight in the mere sound–like the colors of a butterfly’s wing, or the shapeless glories of evening clouds, to the eye–in reading aloud such passages as these: “Heshbon shall cry and Elealeh–their voice shall be heard to Jabez–for by the way of Luhith with weeping shall they go it up–for in the way of Horonaim they shall raise a cry. God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus? He is gone to Aiath, he is passed to Migron; at Michmash he hath laid up his carriages: Ramath is afraid; Gibeah of Saul is fled–Lift up thy voice, O daughter of Gallim: cause it to be heard unto Laish, O poor Anathoth. Madmenah is removed; the inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee. The fields of Heshbon languish–the vine of Sibmah–I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh.” Any one may prove to himself that much of the effect and beauty of these passages depends on these names; put others in their room, and try them.