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and strong, with ropes and boards, and chimneys and nails; and is a splendid place, for this is an awful high house, and we can see clear down to the horizon all around. There we stretch ourselves out on our backs and gaze up into the sky. I take the astronomical map, and by the light of Reky’s dark lantern look up the constellations, and give directions to Ben, who finds them in the heavens. Isn’t that splendid? Think of it, lying ‘way up on that high roof, in the darkness, flat on our backs, gazing up at the stars. One night we learned three or four new constellations. New to us, that is. How many thousand ages they have shone in the heavens, no one knows. It is a splendid way of passing time, with the old names of the Grecian mythology, and the Arabic names of single stars; it links you with the thought of all past ages. Reminds you of Milton—” As when the glass of Galileo, less assured, observes imagined lands and regions in the moon.” It has its drawbacks, however. Last time we were up there, the neighbors couldn’t see us, but they could the light from the dark lantern, and they came rushing in to tell the Deacon that his house was afire, whereupon there was a great commotion, of which we, the innocent cause, were all unconscious, alone on our lofty perch, far above the tumult of the world below. Next morning, however, we heard of it, and the Deacon forbade us to go up there again, ostensibly on account of some supposed, hypothetical, possible, remote, imaginary damage to the shingles. So there is an end to that happiness. However, we shall have to do something to protect the shingles. We can’t lose our observatory. Wasn’t Galileo persecuted, and can we expect less? This term is almost passed. Four weeks more only, and then vacation. I have not managed to read much this term, but hope to do considerable yet. I have finished Guizot’s History of France, as possibly I mentioned last mail. It is just moderate. Very interesting in places. Somewhat dull in others. But it is full and complete, and that is a merit. I am glad I read it. The style when I first began I thought below the average, but I got accustomed to it before proceeding very far. It is finely illustrated, which is a great merit, and seems to be a fair-minded work. You would never know from it that the author was a Protestant. There is no trace of bitterness or partizanship. I have the greatest fun arguing with the young ladies downstairs upon the subject of music, and the advantages of studying it. You know I am red-hot on this subject, as I am on that of education generally. I regard it as a shameful waste of time for these three hundred young ladies to spend all their powers in the study of music. In my opinion it is the imperative duty of at least nine-tenths of them to stop studying music and go to work at a full classical course. It is ridiculous the way we get in the habit of assuming as a matter of course that if a girl is in the conservatory she is an ignoramus, and not to be addressed with sensible remarks. The assumption is all right, but it is a disgrace to the young ladies that it should be a safe one. Supposing all the young men, instead of pursuing a general course of study, should go to work and spend all their time and energies reading poetry, studying metre, and practising writing barbarous poems. The result would be disastrous to think of, but the case would be analogous to that of our fair sisters of the conservatory. All the advantage, however, even then would lie on the side of the boys, because poetry stimulates thought and brings you into contact with a far wider range of mind. However, why should I hector you on this subject? We agree perfectly. In all uncultivated women reason is subservient to passion. It is a comfort to turn from the idle chit-chat of the empty-headed conservatory girls to the conversation of a young lady that has ideas of her own, dear Helen, and therefore I am writing this letter. I am reading just now Lanfrey’s Life of Napoleon. I find it singularly depressing to read about a bad man much at a time. One gets so weary of his crimes and longs so for something good and pure. It is like sleeping under one of those poisonous trees in India which they tell about, and under which it is death to sleep. No mere genius for me. That is not enough. Napoleon cannot get a bit of real admiration from me. I hate him. He is thoroughly bad. There is nothing really great about him. Nothing to call forth respect. Not that a man must have good character to win admiration. I hardly admire Burns the less for the life he led, because that in spite of his making by his weakness life a failure, he yet was a man of true nobility, of lofty thoughts, of worthy ambitions, and of love only for what is true and good. But he had strong temptations, and no will. Napoleon, on the contrary, had none of these good qualities. He was essentially a mean man. There was not one elevated thing in him. I think I shall adopt Carlyle’s view, and admire real genius, believing with him that it must bring with it such a perception of truth, that its possessor cannot be other than a noble hearted and minded man in his primitive impulses, however corrupted and ruined by circumstances, like Burns, Poe, and Byron. In this view Napoleon could not be characterized as a man of genius, but only as having a genius in particular fields. For instance, it is inconceivable that Shakespeare could have been an admirer of anything except what is truly noble. Whereas the wicked not only do, but admire, wickedness. This theory would hold that all greatness is goodness. I think the single division into good and bad will include everything in the world of mind, and that that is not alone moral which we call character, but that all beauty, all happiness, all strength, are moral, whereas, on the other hand, all weakness, all ugliness, as well as all sin, are immoral or bad. I believe this is Carlyle’s theory. He nowhere expresses it, but I imagine that at least it would be in harmony with his views as found in and inferred from the Heroes and Hero-Worship. I could not have expressed the last page or two worse if I had thrown the words all up together and trusted them to come down and arrange themselves. I have lately finished Carlyle’s French Revolution. It is a very peculiar work, of very little value as a history purely, being disjointed, fragmentary, and confused. It does not give a clear connected view of the events of the French Revolution. But if it has these defects, it is also relieved by many merits. Some of its scenes are magnificent, more vivid, more lifelike, more powerful, than anything of the kind I know of in literature. For example, the description of the Feast of Pikes, of the Insurrection of Women, of the attempted flight of the king, of the tremendous rising of the 10th of August, and of the horrible September massacres, are flashed upon the mind with a life-like distinctness which it would seem as though nothing could efface. Why, because it is the work of a man of genius, but especially of a poet. For Carlyle, though he never wrote a word of verse, though he seems to take delight in a style which is sometimes harsh, rude, abrupt, and rugged, was a true poet, and often breaks forth into short bursts which are as musical in form as they are poetical in feeling. I cannot resist the temptation at the risk of boring you, of quoting one or two such places. Notice this, for example: “They are all gone; sunk—down, down with the tumult they made; and the rolling and the trampling of ever new generations passes over them: and they hear it not any more for ever.” Or this line, “They have left their sunny Phocæan city and sea haven with its bustle and its bloom.” Or again, “O Man of Soil, thy struggling and thy daring these six long years of insurrection and tribulation, thou hast profited nothing by it then? Thou consumest thy herring and water, in the blessed gold-red evening. O why was the earth so beautiful, becrimsoned with dawn and twilight, if man’s dealings with man were to make it a vale of scarcity, of tears?” etc. I know these passages are much better in their connection, but I think you will enjoy them even when detached. Read them over and over, and I shall be mistaken if they do not “pass like music” through your brain. There are plenty of other places that I should like to quote, but must not trespass on your patience. I have completely changed my opinion of Carlyle. When I read the Heroes and Hero-Worship, I wasn’t at all enthusiastic over him, whereas now I can hardly keep my head. Some of the passages in the French Revolution are indescribably touching, and almost move one to tears. I think Carlyle was undoubtedly a man of great genius, and I am now inclined to admit that his natural genius is greater than that of Emerson. Notice that last passage I quoted about the “blessed gold-red evening,” and compare it with Keats about Ruth standing “in tears amid the alien corn,” in the “Ode to the Nightingale.” There is not the slightest resemblance, except in the effect upon the mind, which seems to me to be exactly the same. Both are wonderfully pathetic, and it is hard to tell which is best, but just now I confess Carlyle’s seems to give me at least equal pleasure. Comparisons, however, are invidious. Both are great, both the work of great men. I confess I am finding passages in prose now which impress me as deeply as the finest poetry. If you have access to Webster’s speeches, you will find a noble passage (in the Speech on the Laying the Corner Stone of Bunker Hill Monument) beginning, “But alas, you are not all here. Time and the sword have thinned your ranks,” etc. Daniel Webster was a big man. No doubt of that. Don’t trouble yourself about
