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UNiVhivoi.V -. MHRA'nCA
LIBRARY V
LINCOLN. NEBRASKA
Hesperian Student.
VOE.. 2.
University of Nebraska,
JTO. 9.
iicci:iunicre
ul lion JLTollolt, Xonolt.
1872.
A Panegyric on Woman.
Read directly, then rciul first and third, nnd
second nnd fourth linen of each erse, and lu!
tho difference:
Tlio bllsu of him no tongue enn tell,
Who In n woman doth confide;
Who with a woman scorns to dwell,
Unnumbered exits will betide.
Thoy make the dally path of life
A pleasant Journey strewed with flower;
A dtcary scene of painful strife,
Thoy quickly change with matchlcs powers.
Domestic Joys will fast decay
Where female Influence is unknown;
Where'er n woman holds the sway,
A man in In perfection shown.
ShcVnover falling to display
'1 lie tith In all its loellness;
A heart Inclined to treachery
A woman never did posses.
That man true dlgr.ity will find
Who tries the matrimonial stato;
Who pours contempt on womankind,
Will lnoutn his folly when too late.
x In matters 'if controversy he made it
his lmbil never to drive at his antagonist
pell-mell, from tho very outset, but "To
assign the grounds of my belief, rather
than the belief itself; and not to express
dissent, till I could establish some points
of complete sympathy, some grounds
common to both sides, from which to
commence its explanation." This is the
only way to be moderate, and to cton
vince. "Praises to the undesc ving," he says,
"are felt by ardent minds as robberies of
the deserving."
Again, "lie who tells me that there are
defects in a new work, tells me nothing
less. The sting of an adder
remains venemous, though there are
many who have taken up the evil thing
and it hurted them not." This is certain
ly applicable to the Boston school of
thought lo-dny. For those who embrace
false systems "with a full view of all
moral and religious consequences," that
is to say, from preference, Coleridge held
thaf'disoipline, not argument," was the
only remedy. "They must bo made better
men, before they can become wiser."
"Veracity does not consist in saying,
but in tlte intention of communicating
truth." This is the theory of the courts
of law, which judge of crime by the ant-
Coleridge.
which 1 should not have taken for granted mux.
without his information. But he who "Pedantry consists in the use of words
points out and elucidates the beauties of unsuitable to the time, place, and com
an original work, does indeed give me p!Uiy." All words and technicalities have
interesting infonnation, such as expert-; their own proper place, and therein their
enee would not have authorized me in J use is not pedantic.
Day by day the conviction grows upon
me, that by far the. deepest and nobles!
mind of which the world has been pos
sessed dining the last hundred years, is
that of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lie
has left very inadequate monuments of
his "cuius, but ail that bears his impress
is yiugvjiujjixjiuiiiMui,iy JittiBjyy!jau4X,
lute, that we look in vain tor its paralkl
in any single individual. As a mctaphy.
sician he is in the very front rank; as a
oet lie has ft wnetual superiors and had
i xclusive attention been given to poetry,
he had capability enough to have mount
ed to a seat beside the highest name in
any ihpaitmcnt; as a theoictlcal politi
cian (he never could have descended to
tin pcrsmul exposure and destructive ex
pedients of ofilce-huntinjr,) he is unsur
passed; as a literary critic, I believe i'
fair to say lie has no peer; and as ;:
scholar who died a christian, he lias
claim to universal admiration. "I think,''
most irreverently said Dr. Arnold, ot
Hugh;., "with all his faults, old Sam was
more of a great man than any one who
has lived within the four sens in my mem
oi. (Lilt! of Arnold, 2d vol.)
To most youth, with" immature facui
t'cs, tin- writings of Coleridge are found
to be -too proh.und and abstract, for pleas
ant muling. But 1 have thought, that by
selecting from his writing-., at variolic
times, some specimens, of his peculiar
iiiul oiigiual v.isdom, I may incite tin
abh'.t ol our students to attempt the
Mud ol bookr. that will iold a liner and
truer ultivation, especially of the critical
! mi., than an' others with which 1 am
i. iiulinr.
ThcM' lw i wd'-n-cogiiiz-'d c-inons of
pot tic stlo were Miir'je-tcd by Cohridge:
1st. That not fhe poun which wo have
Kid, I ut Il.i.t to which we leUun, with
the .'Hutest picture, rosscsais the genu
i'u j owcr, and claims the nr.nu of cssen
tal pi dry. 2d. "That whi.tever linos
(, i. be UfinJ.ulcd Into 'other vvoids of the
mini language, without diminution of
tl w -Ii liifieance, either in stnse or asso-
anticipating." This does not apply to
works not original and meritorious.
"The llrst lesson of philosophic disci
plinc is to wean the student's mind from
He states the principle of Pes Cartes the degrees of things, which alone form
system to be, "That contemporaneous im- the vocabulary of common life, "and to
pressions, whether images or sensations,
recall each other mechanically."
lie discriminates between theory and
hypothesis -thus: "Aristotle delivers a
just theory without pretending to an hy.
'iwttM.vrriVpKVit.icr'yoriia a coinprehyffr
sivc survey ovdttlcront facts, and ot tlicir
relation to each other without suppoaitum "
A" remarkable paragraph on the body !
celestial and the body terrestrial runs thus:
"This authenticated case furnishes both
proof and instance, that rcligucs of sensn
Hon may exist for an indelinite time in a
latent state, in the very same order in
which they were impressed; that
all thoughts are in themselves imperisha
ble; and, that if the intelligent faculty
should be rendered more comprehensive,
it would require only a different and ap
portioned organization the body celestial
instead of the body terrestrial, to bring
Lefore every human soul the collective
experience of its whole past existence.
And this, this, perchance, is the dread
book of judgment, in the mysterious
hieroglyphic of which every idle word
i.- it coided ! Yea, in the v. nntute of a
living spirit, it may be moie possible that
heaven and eaith should pass away, than
that a single act, a single thought, should
be loosened or lost from that living chain
of causes, with all the links of which,
conscious or unconscious, tho tree-will,
our only al solute Self, Is co-i xtensive and
co.present."
"The faith which saves and sanctifies is
a collective energy, a total act of the
whole moral being; its living nensorittin
ij the heart; and no crmis of the under
standing can bo morally arraigned unhs3
tlu-y have procccdul fiom the heart. But
win titer thoy bo such no man can be cer
tain in the case of another, scat rely per
haps oven in his own. Hence it follows
by inevitable consequence, that wan may
juwcltaneedetarmineuhat islwresy; but God
only ran ltnoto who in a heretic. It does
direct it to tho kind abstracted from tlie de-
cianui, or in i-nv worthy feeling, are ho J WU however, by any meant) follow that
far vicious in their diction." I opinions fundamentally false are harm-
"National education and a concurring
spread of the Gospel, are the indispensa
ble conditions of any true political
meiiiftftfioii." ' '
k "Every principle contains in itself the
germs of a prophecy:" that is to 683 is
prophetic of its own logical results, in
whomsoever accepts it; as, for instance,
the principle of French Psilosophy la
prophetic of Frcr.c'i morals; and the
principle of Boston Psilosophy is pro
phetic of Spiritualism and Free Love.
"Motives by excess reverse their very
nature, and instead of exciting, stun and
stupefy the mind.""
"The ofllco of philosophical disquisi
tion consists in just distinction; while it
is the privilege of Die philosopher to pre
serve himself constantly aware, that dis
tinction is not division. In order to
obtain adequate notions of any truth, we
must intellectually separate its distin
guishable parts; and tills is the technical
process of philosophy."
"Nothing can pcimanently please,
which does not contain in itself the rea
son why it is so, and not otherwise." This
is a valuable rule of criticism. If an
article of literary dress ran be improved,
either in meter, or by addition or sub
traction, it is clearly defective.
"A poet should avoid science, which is
ever in process of change and develops
inent, and abide by the fixed and eternal."
"Tiie woiks of those who liavo stood
the test of ages have a claim to that res
puot and veneration to which no modern
can pretend. The duration and stability
of the r fame is sufllcient to evince that
it has not been suspended upon the slen
der thread of fas ion and caprice, but
bound to tlte huuiuu.ucail by every tie of
S3 mpathetic admiration."
"It is an excellent remark of Dr. Henry
More's, that a man of confined education,
but of good parts, by constant reading of
the Bible will naturally form a more win
ning and commanding rhetoric than
those that aro learned; the intcrmixtu.ro
of tongues and of artificial phrases de
basing their style." Macaulay worked
out the same theory in his essay on Jklil
ion. "Facts aro valuable to a wise man
chiefly as they lead to the discovery of
the Indwelling law, etc."
"The best part of human language,
properly so called, is derived from reflec
tion on the acts of the mind itself. It is
formed by a voluntary appropriation of
fixed symbols to internal acts, to processes
and results of imagination, tho greater
part of which have no place in the con
sciousness of uneducated man; though In
1 civilized society, by imitation and pas-
isive remembrance of what they hear
from their religious instructors and other
superiors, the most uneducated share in
the harvest which the' neither sowed nor
reaped."
"Every man's language has, first, its
individualities; secondly, the common
properties of the class to which he he
ir s; and thirdly, words and phrases of
universal use."
"The property of passion is'Anot to
create; but.to set In Increased activity." ,1
PJ-Ji t. -fc . J-M,. .., . . J
"The ultimate end of criticism is much
more to establish tho principles of wri
ting? than to furnish rules how to pass
judgment on what. has been written by
others; if indeed it were possible that the
two could be separated."
"The oflicc and duty of tho poet is to
select the most dignified as well aa
'Tho cayest, happiest attitude of things.'
The reverse, for in all cases a roversc is
possible, is the appropriate business of
burlesque and travestry, a predoinincnt
taste for which has always been deemed a
mark of a low and degraded mind."
Apply this canon of criticism to John
Hay's "Pike County Ballads;" Brcto
Harte's ''Heathen Chinee;" and Lowell's
"Bigclovv Papers."
"Language is framed to convey not the
object alone, but likewise the character,
mood and intentions of the person who is
representing it" Half the value of any
book is in its unveiling the individualism
of the author.
"I shall attempt to prove the close con
nection between veracity and habits of
mental accuracy ; the beneficial after
effects of verbal precision in the preclu
sion of fanatacism, which masters the
feelings more especially by indistinct
watch-words."
The foregoing passages have all been
selected from the Biograplua Lltcrario. If
the 6tudent will take them one by one,
ponder them, and make them his own, he
will have gained much useful matter for
the developement of taste, and the guid
anco of opinion. But I shall feel more
than rewarded for the labor of selection
and copy, if I lead anyone te read the
book itself, and to make all that Color
idgo wrote an extended and profitable
study. D.
1
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