THE SYMPATHIES. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF WIELAND. 1. BEAUTIFUL Celia, you do not yet know your tenderest lover! Your enchanting beauty has collected around you a swarm of cringing slaves, but they do not love you. How little must you comprehend your own value, if you should become proud in consequence of their attentions! They do not love you, Čelia. It is a grosser feeling that animates their rivalry. Each one of your charms, in their eyes, promises its own peculiar zest, its own peculiar rapture. These suitors regard you in the same light as Eve considered the apple, which appeared to her delightful to the eye, and yet more so to the taste. But I, who never saw you with my physical eyes, I can only consider you with my mental vision, and this reveals, beneath your earthly form, something more beautiful than beauty itself. Flowers, pictures, and statues, I may admire; but this heavenly gift, which elevates your visible presence as much above all other beauties, as an angel excels a butterfly, this divine possession, entirely captivates my heart. Without flattering you, (for wherefore should an ethereal lover a genius flatter ?) I will direct your attention to more noble objects than the untiring worshippers of your youthful charms can place before you. I could wish to inspire your heart with an elevated pride, that will place you far beyond each rosy-cheeked maiden, in whom either nature or education has forgotten to elaborate the chiefest perfection; whose whole history may be summed up in a few words : who bloom, are plucked, and wither. Reflect, that you are advancing to an age, when the world will consider you either with approving or censorious eyes. Your beauty will attract toward you an attention of which mere beauty is not worthy. It is time, therefore, that you should learn the true object of your existence. If the force of sympathy is rightly comprehended by me, reflection is at this moment whispering to your soul that which I now think. Lovely Celia, the whole world is a shadow; a reflection of immortality, which alone is eternal and divine. Your soul is the image of the divinity, your person the image of your soul. These colors, these graces, are the lustre with which it invests the body, and by means of which it should effect its proper objects. Beauty is a promise by which the soul is bound to entertain no thought that is not great, noble, and elevating. It is the talisman by which others should be made attentive to the lessons of virtue. For one possessed of beauty should be a tutoress; teaching by the example that she sets. Virtue, which, invested with beauty, moves among mankind, enters into their interests and passions, and is plainly to be observed by them, pleases more, touches more tenderly, and drives its arrows deeper into the heart, than when arrayed in all the imposing wisdom of the schools, or in the enchanting diction of a Richardson. Modesty appears more engaging when it blushes upon lovely cheeks; the expression of feelings, that betray a gentle disposition and goodness of heart, sounds more sweetly when proceeding from ruby lips; and how does a beautiful eye enrapture us, when, beaming with earnest, undissembled emotion, it is raised in prayer toward the throne of the Almighty, and the pious reflections that well forth from the devout mind are revealed with a bright and dazzling splendor in its glances. If wisdom, if innocence, if humility, if the noble sentiments, which belief in the religion of Christ induces, operate with all their power upon hearts already softened and overcome by mere personal beauty, how can they do otherwise than admire this higher excellence? And in each elevated soul, from admiration will arise love, from love, emulation. O, Celia, what a benefactress to mankind could you not become! How many fools you might shame, who are not able to believe that unconquerable virtue may reside in a tender heart, at the same time with youth! How many could you not oblige to honor Virtue against their will! How many who once feared her, would then, attracted by your charms, view her more closely, and consent to worship at her shrine! How would the mere rarity of the sight attract attention; the world would believe that it was an angel appearing among men, to teach them by example. Then perhaps, beauty and wisdom, when united, might touch those thoughtless persons, who are too foolish to love virtue for its own sake. O, Celia, disappoint not the design of the Creator who formed thee! Do not so employ the graces of your person, that they will be but syrens, inviting us to death! Forgive, forgive, oh, beautiful friend! my honest earnestness. I know that you would rather lose all the lustre of your charms, than that a moral deformity should be concealed behind so beautiful a mask; the venom of the serpent lie hidden beneath the flowers. I see even more. A noble thirst for knowledge flashes from your eyes: an awakening consciousness of the dignity of your own nature, a crowd of lofty presentiments, excite the pulses of your heart. You despise the male insects which flutter around you, in whatsoever garb they may choose to glitter. You long after the applause of the king and ruler of the world, who alone dives into the labyrinth of our inclinations, and alone is fitted to judge of our actions. With how novel a beauty will you enhance our now deformed world! How much will the friends of virtue love you! What a heaven will that fortunate person, to whom destiny shall award you, as a reward for his virtue, find in your possession! How blessed will be the lot of those, whom, with maternal care, you shall rear in the paths of innocence and virtue. You will be a Byron, in your youthful days, and a venerated Shirley, when the hand of time shall whiten your locks; and although age may deprive your cheeks of their roses, it will never be able to efface the harmonious expression of your features. II. WHEREFORE, oh, Alceste! is your countenance, which Nature intended for the expression of benevolent feelings, overshadowed by a cloud of discontent? Whence those impatient glances, those moody frowns upon a brow, which was created serene and smooth? What is it that has vexed you? 'All mankind. Men are monsters, whom one must either hate or despise. Their folly, their vice, their wild fancies, their senseless dis tinctions, their deceit, and their wickedness, are no longer supportable. You may examine them in any point of view, and find nothing in their nature worthy of regard. They may have been estimable when they came in their primal innocence, fresh from the hands of the Creator. But as they soon thereafter became, and yet remain, you will find them not to be tolerated. They boast of an understanding, whose dictates they never pursue, and admire virtue the more, the less they desire to practice it. So long as affairs proceed according to their wishes, they are conceited and proud, attributing every success to their own wisdom and prudence, but the moment that any misfortune befa'ls them, they sink despairing to the earth, and lament the consequences of their folly, as the unavoidable decrees of fate. They are continually avoiding self-examination, and seek happiness in all manner of ways, save only that in which it is to be found. They pay no respect to truth. The most abominable error, clothed in an agreeable mask, pleases them more than truth, which is most beautiful when unadorned. They mutiny against the commands of the Most High, in whom they place no faith, until his thunders remind them of his power, or until, at the approach of death, they are driven, as if by fairies armed with whip of serpents, from a consciousness of their evil deeds to his judgment seat. They are perpetually making laws, and examining in search of that which is just; they make laws that are to restrain their vices, and those vices are their only rule of action. Many do not fear to become villains in the face of heaven and earth, and the remainder, who are not yet lost to all shame, have invented a false virtue, in order to conceal their degradation, and preferred it to that true virtue, of which they have neither knowledge nor comprehension. The wretches! Religion itself, which promises them an eternity of bliss, if they will only do that which they would be compelled by necessity to do, were there no heaven, even religion has not been able to induce them to become wise. What a confusion, what a turmoil of moral discord, exists throughout the human race! What a glorious creature would man be, if he were only that which he should be! The angel of the earth! But what is he now, when it were injustice to the beasts of the field to compare them with him! Now that he is changed from a wise, beneficent, tender being, to a cruel, proud, unjust monster; whom nature does not acknowledge as her offspring, and would gladly spurn into chaos, where alone his equal can possibly be found.' Enough, enough, Alceste; you might in this point of view, and in this strain, slander mankind from the rising of the sun to its setting. But what inference do you draw from all this? What other, than that it is torture to an upright mind, to live among such abominations, and either, silent as a statue that is not shaded, look calmly upon their shameful actions, or be obliged, if one opens his lips, to point out at each turn, their stupid pride, their sophistical knowledge, and their revengeful malice. Can any one, possessed of understanding and honesty, remain indifferent? No! I am not willing that a fruitless anger shall devour me. I will go forth into a desert, into an impassable wilderness, where the free turf has never withered beneath the footsteps of this venomous creature. Lions and tigers may have their dens around me; serpents and dragons may hiss in my ears; but freed from the sight of man, I can imagine myself in a paradise.' And this then is your determination? In this manner you are about to better your condition.' By your own wisdom to correct the faults of that Providence which has placed you among men? Without doubt you will far excel the miracles of Orpheus, and by the magical power of your philosophy, qualify wild beasts to become your companions! Believe me, when you have no one to whom you can disclose your meditations, no one who will love or applaud, Time will fly with leaden wings. To converse with trees like lovers in romances, is agreeable for but a very short period. But allow me at least to inquire of you what may have been the cause of this bitterness toward all mankind? Acknowledge candidly that you have been slandered by some villain, by some person to whom every one denies understanding and honesty, and who has notwithstanding found those who would place confidence in him. It is this that has touched you so closely! It is indeed an evil action, but it is one that should not have been able to excite so violent a storm of passion in the breast of a wise man; for you will readily admit that it is very unjust to to vent that anger upon all, which has only been deserved by one. Yes, you reply; if I did not know that the remainder are quite as wicked as this one! What is there to object to the truth of the picture I have drawn? Perhaps very much. But now answer me this question are there no virtuous men in this world? Yes, you reply, but there are so few of them that they cannot be compared with the number of the vicious. You judge very hastily. A single virtuous man outweighs a hell of the wicked. But wherefore do you make the number of the virtuous so small? Do you not know some yourself? And are those that you do not know, so much the fewer? How if their number should be much greater in the records of heaven? And should not a single virtuous man give a well regulated mind so much pleasure, that the sight of a thousand vicious ones would not lessen it? Let me speak frankly, Alceste; you love candor toward you. Has not a fit of passion, which may have a less noble origin than you appear to think, clouded your mental vision? You surely know the nature of the passions. They exaggerate, they give circumstances that form which best suits their purposes; they are the most ancient and most skilful sophists. Heated by a religious frenzy, the follower of Mahomet sees in the sanguinary conflict a heaven of black-eyed beauties; overcome by fear, the coward sees and hears naught but spectres around him; governed by passion, you see naught but mean folly and vice, naught but disorder reigning throughout the world. Has the world appeared to you at all times thus hateful? You blush. But yesterday, as you returned from the beautiful Delia, every thing appeared agreeable to you; every thing around you breathed of heaven; you dreamed of nothing but innocence and tenderness. The world is equally blameless, whether you view it in a better or worse light than it deserves. View it as it is, and accustom yourself to consider it with the eyes of a Christian, and it will again bloom before you with the beauty of an Eden. This is more than mere worldly wisdom can compass: that may render us patient, but it is piety alone that can make us contented. Do you imagine that the Creator would suffer this world to exist for another moment, if he did not find therein an excellence agreeable to his sight, a goodness that overbalances its evil? Do you believe that the Son of God descended in vain, to collect for himself an unreal congregation of the pious, and sacrificed his life, that thereby the ancient claim of Heaven to the earth might remain valid? Shame upon your unreflecting indignation, which slanders the divinity, when it only thought to censure mankind! And how does this bitterness toward your fellow creatures, agree with the benevolence which you should yourself manifest, since you condemn so severely the want of it in others? I do not ask you to be a friend to mankind, as long as you shall find them deserving of your hate. But as an inhabitant of the earth, you are not permitted to do even an insect injustice. If then you cannot prove your charges upon each and every individual, and it should be found that man is possessed of virtues that far outweigh his vices, then you will be, according to the judgment of your own heart, an exceedingly unrighteous being, and no one will less willingly than yourself, after such conviction, continue to thunder forth censures, thus unmercifully, upon the failings of your brethren. Allow me for a moment to represent your conscience, and to direct your attention to yourself. Examine your past life, and tell me then whether you can deny your relationship to mankind? How much folly will this self-examination disclose in your own bosom! Perhaps you will find that mankind would really only deserve to be despised, in case each one, in the proportion to the capacity and qualifications which have been granted to him for his improvement, were to have as many faults as yourself. I see how ashamed this consideration makes you. I will not press you farther with my arguments. But I hope you will reflect deeply upon the precept of the Divine founder of Christianity, when, with a profound insight into human nature, he strenuously exhorted his disciples to humility. Humility, or selfknowledge, is the best antidote against a misanthropy such as yours, which, it is true, arises from an inclination toward virtue, but is swollen by pride into a passion that slanders mankind, and is a species of rebellion against Providence. X. Y. Z. 1 SONNET. WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.' SWEETLY they passed along the desert road, (Faithful and Christian,) toward the blissful bourne, Ere they arrived before that bright abode: And foes without, and foes, alas! within, They reach the mansions of eternal rest, Newburyport, (Mass.) 6. L. |