Part 31

Reverence, then, is not fear; but wonder, solemnity, and veneration. "It is to cherish a habit of looking upward, and seeing what is noble and good in all things." Its blessings are many. By it we can win a masterly judgment to determine the fitness of behavior and habits; it will keep us from thoughtless words and deeds; it will make us respectful to old age and appreciative of the past; and, in many other ways, it will prove itself of real value to all who cultivate and cherish it.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

We select, as our special example, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the best known of our American poets. The great poet, whoever he may be, is always reverential. His stanzas are crowned with a sacred seriousness. He gives to life a "grand, true, harmonic interpretation." Longfellow was born on the 27th of February, 1807, at Portland, Maine. In his earlier years he displayed the same gentle, amiable spirit which filled his after-life with sunshine and goodness.

He proved himself to be possessed of a very bright mind even as a boy, and entered Bowdoin College when only fourteen years of age. He afterwards served this same institution as professor of modern languages, and in 1835 was called to fill a similar position in Harvard University.

He visited Europe, twice at least, for purposes of study; and, on his return from his second trip, began that illustrious career of instruction and authorship which has been the source of so much honorable pride on the part of his countrymen. Longfellow selected a historic home in Cambridge; it was the house occupied by Washington when he took command of the United States Army in 1776,--a spacious structure, full of welcoming windows, and situated in the midst of old elms. Here he lived till his death; and now the stretch of land, from the estate to the river Charles, has been bought and adorned as a memorial.

The writings of Longfellow are household possessions, fully as much in England as in America, and we need not enumerate them. They are famous not so much for originality, as for their calm, spiritual, purifying messages. They are full of good-will, aspiration, trust, and real loftiness of tone. Indeed, Longfellow "loved to make clear his discipleship to him whose ministry was love, whose flock was all humanity, whose kingdom was peace and righteousness."

So deep was the impression made by Mr. Longfellow's beauty of character, that it equaled his literary fame. He always responded to callers, and they came by hundreds; he never refused his autograph; children loved him; his charities were manifold; young authors received his encouragement. Modest as to his own writings, he strove to praise the good in others. Every one who met him perceived the source of all this rare grace and fascinating nobility of soul to be a sense of the glory and divineness of all life. His soul stood in a reverential attitude toward existence, and a marvelous light shone through him and his poetry as the result.

Down to the last his pen was active. He died on the 24th of March, 1882. Degrees and honors had been freely bestowed on him; but the highest tributes came from his admirers on both sides of the Atlantic; and his reverential spirit still lives in hundreds of those who read his beautiful verses.

XXIX.

SENTIMENT.

MEMORY GEMS.

Sentiment is nothing but thought blended with feeling.--J. F. Clarke

Sentiment takes part in the shaping of all destinies.--R. Southey

A little child is the sweetest and purest thing in the world. --J. S. White

Sentiment is the life and soul of poetry and art.--J. Flaxman

Sentiment is emotion precipitated in pretty crystals by the fancy. --J. R. Lowell

It is quite difficult to define sentiment. This has been done, however, by the use of the following figures. "We may think of it as color, without which nothing in nature or art is complete. A colorless character is as unsatisfactory as a colorless landscape. We may also think of it as cement; for it serves to bind together the ordinary facts and incidents of life. Just as the bricks and stones of a building are useless until held in the places designed for them under some governing plan, so we may say that a selfish and gross character is not bound together by noble sentiments. Or we may say, again, that sentiment is the wing-power of man, whereby he has ability to fly away from the commonplace and unworthy. By it the ordinary citizen becomes a glowing patriot; the drudging youth turns into the devoted statesman; and life is made better in a thousand ways."

In one of our memory gems we find it asserted that "sentiment is the life and soul of poetry and art." Perhaps this statement may help us here. Pure poetry is the perfection of prose, or prose idealized. "It is a dream drawn from the infinite, and portrayed to mortal sense." It takes a great mind, a great genius to weave into a gossamer web, complete and perfect in every part, a story, a tale, an idea, which alike charms the mind, enthralls the sense, and enchains the spirit. Poetry is the perfection of language. It is not a mere mechanical contrivance of words, but a glorious picture in which the outward execution is lost in a glory of expression.

The poet Holmes was brimful of sentiment. Listen to him as he talks about the flowers.

"Do you ever wonder why poets talk so much about flowers? Did you ever hear of a poet who did not talk about them? Don't you think a poem, which, for the sake of being original, should leave them out, would be like those verses where the letter 'a' or 'e' or some other is omitted? No,--they will bloom over and over again in poems as in the summer fields, to the end of time, always old and always new.

"Are you tired of my trivial personalities,--those splashes and streaks of sentiment, sometimes perhaps of sentimentality, which you may see when I show you my heart's corolla as if it were a tulip? Pray, do not give yourself the trouble to fancy me an idiot, whose conceit it is to treat himself as an exceptional being. It is because you are just like me that I talk and know that you listen. We are all splashed and streaked with sentiments,--not with precisely the same tints, or in exactly the same patterns, but by the same hand and from the same palette."

To say, as some do, that there is no place for sentiment in life, would be almost equal to saying that life is devoid of joy. But who says there are no joys in life? Take, for example a good pure natural laugh. We hear it bubbling, gushing, pealing out, every now and then, from some glad child of nature; and we say, there is joy in life. The gloom of ages has been lightened with laughter and song.

There is much to awaken deep and real sentiment in us as we gaze on the tree-tops, the mountains and hillsides, the gurgling waters and sweeping billows; on sunlight, shadow, and storm. Behind the forest-leaf we suddenly discover a songster, the gleam of an oriole's breast in a bed of mantling green. Nature always rejoices. She has been singing and laughing all down the ages. She does her part grandly for the happiness of man; and as we come into closer touch with her, sentiment arises as naturally in our hearts, as does the water in her bubbling springs.

We may find a place for sentiment in all life's changeful affairs. Even the stern realities of war do not entirely eradicate from the heart that feeling for suffering humanity, which is the highest expression of sentiment.

There were but few who were so thoughtless as not to be stirred with the feeling which possessed the heart of Captain Phillips, and the crew of the battleship Texas, when, as they stood on the deck, with uncovered heads and reverent souls, on the afternoon of the engagement before Santiago, the knightly old sailor said: "I want to make public acknowledgment here that I believe in God. I want all you officers and men to lift your hats, and from your hearts offer silent thanks to the Almighty for the victory he has given us." But it was not the mere victory over a foe that caused this general and thoughtful lifting of heart; it was exultation at the triumph of justice and the progress of freedom.

The presence or absence of sentiment in our lives is largely accounted for by the fact that we usually find what we are looking for. The geologist sees design and order in the very stones with which the streets are paved. The botanist reads volumes in the flowers and grasses which most men tread thoughtlessly beneath their feet. The astronomer gazes with rapt soul into the starry heavens, while his fellows seldom glance upward. If we seek for the beautiful and the pure, it will be quickly revealed to us; and the sentiment of loving gratitude will arise within us as the result.

Nature takes on our moods; she laughs with those who laugh, and weeps with those who weep. If we rejoice and are glad, the very birds sing more sweetly; the woods and streams murmur our song. But if we are sad and sorrowful, a sudden gloom falls upon nature's face; the sun shines, but not in our hearts; the birds sing, but not to us. The beauty of nature's music is lost to us, and everything seems dull and gray. The lack of sentiment narrows and belittles us; and, for that reason, we cannot afford to be without it.

We must always strive to keep in mind how important sentiment is to a happy and useful career, whatever position in life we may happen to occupy. Noble sentiments are the richest possession we can have. They cheer us when we are despondent, they sing to us when we are lonesome, and they help to keep us young. They are like brilliant poets and divine musicians; by whom the true, the good, and the beautiful are kept constantly before our minds.