FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>  
es, which are so like his own? One sermon from the colic were worth the whole American Board. Moreover, as an author, I protest in the name of universal Grub Street against a unanimity in goodness. Not to mention that a Quaker world, all faded out to an autumnal drab, would be a little tedious,--what should we do for the villain of our tragedy or novel? No rascals, no literature. You have your choice. Were we weak enough to consent to a sudden homogeneousness in virtue, many industrious persons would be thrown out of employment. The wife and mother, for example, with as indeterminate a number of children as the Martyr Rogers, who visits me monthly,--what claim would she have upon me, were not her husband forever taking to drink, or the penitentiary, or Spiritualism? The pusillanimous lapse of her lord into morality would not only take the very ground of her invention from under her feet, but would rob her and him of an income that sustains them both in blissful independence of the curse of Adam. But do not let us be disheartened. Nature is strong; she is persistent; she completes her syllogism after we have long been feeding the roots of her grasses, and has her own way in spite of us. Some ancestral Cromwellian trooper leaps to life again in Nathaniel Greene, and makes a general of him, to confute five generations of Broadbrims. The Puritans were good in their way, and we enjoy them highly as a preterite phenomenon; but they were _not_ good at cakes and ale, and that is one reason why they are a preterite phenomenon. I suppose we are all willing to let a public censor like P.V. run amuck whenever he likes,--so it be not down our street. I confess to a good deal of tolerance in this respect, and, when I live in No. 21, have plenty of stoicism to spare for the griefs of the dwellers in No. 23. Indeed, I agreed with our young Cato heartily in what he said about Statues. We must have an Act for the Suppression, either of Great Men, or else of Sculptors. I have not quite made up my mind which are the greater nuisances; but I am sure of this, that there are too many of both. They used to be _rare_ (to use a Yankeeism omitted by Bartlett), but nowadays they are overdone. I am half inclined to think that the sculptors club together to write folks up during their lives in the newspapers, quieting their consciences with the hope of some day making them look so mean in bronze or marble as to make all square again. Or do we rea
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   >>  



Top keywords:
preterite
 

phenomenon

 

generations

 
general
 

respect

 

tolerance

 

confute

 

griefs

 

dwellers

 

stoicism


plenty

 
confess
 

Indeed

 
reason
 
suppose
 

agreed

 

censor

 

Puritans

 

public

 

street


highly

 

Broadbrims

 

sculptors

 

nowadays

 

Bartlett

 
overdone
 

inclined

 

newspapers

 

quieting

 

marble


bronze

 

square

 
consciences
 

making

 

omitted

 

Suppression

 

heartily

 

Statues

 

Sculptors

 

Yankeeism


greater
 
nuisances
 

Nature

 

choice

 

literature

 
villain
 

tragedy

 
rascals
 
consent
 

mother