MAAAAAA

sure, there is far more now to occupy the time and attention of both; but the will, as well as the way, seems wanting.

There is a saying, that "the wife ceases to be the divinity." In many cases, it is too true; and there are two prominent "wherefores" in the case. Illconsidered and ill-assorted unions are said to be the natural result of the present phase of society among us. The glamour of romance and fancy melts away into the sharp outlines of a commonplace reality

"The idol is broken, the earth star fled."

But there is another evil too common in domestic life-the decline of those mutual delicate attentions that are the charm of all wooing between those whose tastes really assimilate, and whose characters might be moulded into one harmonious whole by the daily attraction of home life. It is the greater evil, that its approaches are so natural, so gradual, and so unsuspected. It is a lingering torpor of affection, not a sudden, distinctive blow; and indifference is its sure result, quite as destructive to domestic peace as any grievous fault that might mar the character of either party, and bring open warfare for this unnatural calm. Sometimes the wife expects 100 much. She is not content with the natural transition from the lover's unceasing study of her

good will and pleasure, to the more quiet attentions of the husband. She is not contented with the change from "my own darling" to the habitual "my dear." She is inclined to grieve over it, to meet her husband reproachfully, and her tears too often fall "like vinegar upon nitre." Hear, then, what an old German writer says, since we allow that his nation is most happy in its social relations; one from whom we have before quoted. but whose charmingly good-tempered advice cannot be read too often :

"Try to appear cheerful and contented, and your husband will be so; and when you have made him happy, you will become so, not in appearance, but in reality. The skill required is not so great. Nothing flatters a man so much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it. As soon as you are cheerful, you will be lively and alert, and every moment will afford you an opportunity of letting fall an agreeable word. Good education is an immense advantage, and will greatly assist you, and your sensibility will become the noblest gift that nature has bestowed on you, when it shows itself in affectionate assiduity, and stamps on every action a soft, kind, and tender character, instead of wasting itself in secret repinings." We should like to see the husband that could resist such household influences.

BY HENRY Ꭲ .

THERE is an epithet of frequent occurrence in the writings of Chesterfield which suggests the nature of his philosophy of life; it is the word shining, which he applies to oratory, character, and manners with an obvious relish. We have the greatest faith in the significance of language-especially in regard to the habitual use of certain adjectives as illustrative of individual opinions, temperament, and disposition. Brief sentences thickly interspersed with the first personal singular is a style indicative of egotism; dainty verbal quibbles of effeminacy, and a copious, prolonged, and emphatic combination of words, seem equally native to a full and earnest mind. It may be a fanciful idea, but this our experience frequently confirms- that the constant use of the word designating a quality is an instinctive sign of its predominance in character. Chesterfield's ideal of excellence was essentially superficial, for his praise of solid acquirement and genuine principles is always coupled with the assertion of their entire inutility if unaccompanied by grace, external polish, and an agreeable manifestation. He omits all consideration of their intrinsic worth and absolute dignity; their value to the individual, according to him, is wholly proportioned to his skill in using them in a social form. It is seeming, not being, he extols; rhetoric, in his view, far transcends reflect

TUCKERMAN.

ive power; manners have more to do with human welfare than sentiment, and fact achieves more satisfactory conquests than truth; it is not depth, elevation, or extent, the permanent qualities-but those of a temporary kind, that belong to the surface of life, upon which he relies. Accordingly, to shine in oratory, conversation, and behavior, is to realize the highest points both of nature and study; the casual scintillation of reflected light is more attractive to him, because more dazzling to the eyes of the world, than that which is evolved from primal and indestructible sources. The eulogy of his biographer has, therefore, a literal justice when he says that Chesterfield was one of the most shining characters of the age. Thus we might be content that should pass in a mere gallery of traditionary portraits. But the theory upon which it was based, the system according to which it was formed, have been elaborately unfolded by Chesterfield himself with epistolary art; and, although he never designed publicly to advocate them, yet the fact that his letters have been not only for many years a manual of deportment, his name a synonym for attractive elegance, and his writings, within a short time, revised and edited by an English historian,*

*Lord Mahon.

is sufficient reason for applying to him, and the school he proverbially represents, the test of that impartial scrutiny, challenged by whatever practically acts upon society, and exercises more or less prescriptive influence. Character may be divided into two great classes-the one based upon details, and the other upon general principle; and all history, as well as private experience, shows that elevated harmony and permanent influence belong only to the latter. And this is true of the various forms as well as the essential nature of character. The philosopher differs from the petit-maître, and the poet from the dilettante, by virtue of the same lawthe view of the one being comprehensive, and the other minute. In art, also, we recognize true efficiency only where general effects are aptly seized and justly embodied-the artist of mere detail ranks only as a mechanician in form and color. But the most striking truth involved in these distinctions is that the greater includes the less; the man of reliable general principles in literature, art, or life, is, in point of fact, master of all essential details; he combines them at a glance, or, rather, they insensibly arrange themselves at his will; he can afford to let them take care of themselves. The great sculptors and painters busied themselves only about the design and finish of their works, for intermediate details were wrought by their pupils; and if the overseer, whether of domestic or public affairs, establish order and integrity as the principles of his establishment, he need not give his time or thoughts to the minutiae of finance. If we apply this principle to social life, the sphere which Chesterfield regarded as the most important, a similar result is obvious. No one, even in that artificial world called society, ever achieved a satisfactory triumph by exclusive mastery of details. All that is involved in the term manners, is demonstrative, symbolic-the sign or exponent of what lies behind, and is taken for granted; and only when this outward manifestation springs from an inward source-only when it is a natural product, and not a graft-does it sustain any real significance. Hence the absurdity of the experiment of Chesterfield to inculcate a graceful address by maxims, and secure a winsome behavior by formal and minute directions, as if to learn how to enter a room, bow well, speak agreeably to a lady, dispose of unoccupied hands, and go inoffensively through the other external details of social intercourse, were to insure the realization of a gentleman. That character-as it was understood in chivalry by the old English dramatists, and according to the intelligent sentiment of mankind everywhere-is as much the product of nature as any other species of human development; art modifies only its technical details; its spirit comes from blood more than breeding; and its formula, attached by prescription to the body without analogous inspiration of the soul, is as awkward and inefficient as would be proficiency in military tactics to a coward, or vast philological acquisitions to an idiot. Yet Chesterfield, with the obstinacy that belongs to the artificial race of men,

persisted in his faith in detail, would not recognize the law from which all genuine social power is elaborated, and apparently lived and died in the belief that the art of pleasing was the great interest of life, and an absolute means of success and personal happiness. All his views, habits, and career were impregnated with this artificial creed; phrenologically speaking, he was an incarnation of approbativeness; his zest of life came through this his predominant organ, and, judging from consciousness, he believed it to be the only one in others which could be universally appealed to. Unblinded by self-love, he had but to reflect upon his own experience to realize the fallacy of his doctrine. Everywhere and always he consulted explicitly the oracle of public opinion, and conformed to it with a fanaticism unworthy his intelligence. He confesses to the very son whom he strove with such zeal to make the "glass of fashion," that in college he was an absolute pedant, and thought great classical knowledge the test of all excellence; that, emancipated from the atmosphere of learning and thrown among young men of fashion, he led a life of slavery by conforming to habits which were alien not only to his constitution and tastes, but even to his desires; and that, in mature years, the requisitions of the beau monde held him in equal vassalage; while his old age, we are told, "was cheerless and desolate." There are men who regard the artificial as a necessary evil in social life, while they repudiate it altogether elsewhere; but, in the case of Chesterfield, it was deliberately advocated as a general principle; it influenced not only his theory of manners, but his literary taste, political opinions, and entire philosophy. Thus he laid aside the AngloSaxon direct and robust temper, and gave in so completely to French manners and superficiality, that, in Paris, he was considered one of themselves, and prides himself upon the distinction. In literature, the only branch which he thoroughly appreciated was oratory, and that chiefly for the rhetorical artifice to which it gives scope. Not as a noble inspiration founded on loyalty to instructive sentiment, or aimed at the cause of humanity, but as an elegant accomplishment whereby to exercise influence and gain applause, did Chesterfield cultivate oratory. It seems perfectly natural that he should excel in its studied graces, and equally so that such a cold virtuoso as Horace Walpole should have preferred him to Pitt. It is, too, not less characteristic of such a man that he should choose diplomacy as a profession. Believing, as he did, only in elegance and cunning, in politic self-control, veiled with agreeableness, the "smooth barbarity of courts" was admirably fitted at once to employ his ingenuity and gratify his refined selfishness. Thus devoid of earnestness on the one hand, and wedded to artificial graces on the other, we cannot wonder that, in his view, Dante, the most intensely picturesque of poets, could not think clearly; and that Petrarch, the beautiful expositor of sentiment, would appear only a love-sick rhymer; nor can we reasonably feel

surprise that he quoted Rochefoucault and Cardinal de Retz with emphatic respect, while he could be only facetious in his allusions to Milton and Tasso. Among the books he most cordially recommends his son are a treatise on the Art of Pleasing, and the "Spectacle du Nature"-the very titles of which reveal his dominant ideas-for the end of being, in his opinion, was to please, at whatever sacrifice of acaesty, comfort, or truth; and nature to him was but a spectacle, as life itself was a melodrama. He distrusted the motives of Fenelon, and thought Bolingbroke admirable. Even in more highly-prized classical attainments, which we should imagine were endeared by personal taste, the same reference to external motive appears. He admires the study of Greek chiefly because it is a less common acquisition than Latin; and the translation of striking passages of eloquence as a means of forming style and storing the mind with desirable quotations. Indeed, in his view, the process of culture, instead. of an end, was a means-not to perfect or enrich the individual character, but to obtain the requisites of social advancement. In accordance with his faith in the details of outward conduct, and obtuseness to the influence of the great natural laws of character in their social agency, Chesterfield advocated power over others as the lever by which to move away the impediments to personal success; not that legitimate power decreed by original superiority, and as certain in the end to regulate society as gravitation the planets-but a studious, politic, and artificial empire won by dissimulation and attractiveness. In urging this favorite theory upon his son, he seems to have been unconscious of the painful discipline involved in the process, the long and weary masquerade, and the incessant danger of losing, in a moment, the influence gained by months of sycophancy; neither does he take into view the wholly unsatisfactory and unreliable nature of the relations thus established; and fails to see the inevitable result of the short-sighted policy of detail -in the temporary sway thus acquired; the permanent is sacrificed to the immediate, and, by addressing the most insatiable and capricious of human propensities, his system entails not an hour, but a life of social fawning. He recommends the study of character in order to discover the ruling passion, and then a skillful use of his key-note in order to play upon the whole for private benefit; forgetting that, as in the case of the indignant prince, a suspicion of such base friendship will lead to scorn and rejection-"Do you think I am easier to be played upon than a pipe?" To this watchful observation he would have united a power to conceal our own emotions in order to give no advantage to our com. panion, and a facility in appealing to self-love as the best means of throwing him, off his guard. The temper, the opinions, the tastes, and even the most gentle and noble sentiments, are to be kept in uniform abeyance; self-possession and adroit flattery are the two great requisites, in his view, for success in life; distrust of others the guarantee of personal

safety; and the art of pleasing the science of the world. History, philosophy, and the prevailing instincts of enlightened humanity teach another lesson. These maxims, so often quoted as sagacious, are, in fact, extremely shallow; instead of seeing more deeply into human nature, Chesterfield only saw its superficial action. If there were no sphere for character but promiscuously-filled elegant drawingrooms, no more stable law operating on society than fashion, and no method of acting on human affairs but that of diplomacy, such advice would have a higher degree of significance. It applies to but few of the actual exigencies of life, and has reference only to partial interests; all men should be social adventurers, and all women aim exclusively at social distinction, to give any general utility to precepts like these. They are essentially temporary and occasional even when true, and utterly false when elevated into principles of action. Hence we deny Dr. Johnson's assertion that, setting the immorality of Chesterfield's letters aside, they form the best manual for gentlemen; the character repudiates the term; its elements are no more to be "set in a notebook" than the spirit of honor or the inspiration of art. The views of Chesterfield, practically carried out, would make a pedantic courtier or a courteous pedant; they trench too much upon the absolute qualities of manhood to leave substance enough in character upon which to rear enduring graces; they omit frankness and moral courage-two of the most attractive and commanding of human attributesand substitute an elegant chicanery incompatible with self-respect, upon which the highest grace of manner rests; their logic is that of intrigue, not of reason; their charms are those of the dancing-master, not of the knight. Their relation to a true philosophy of life is no more intimate than the concetti of the Italians to the highest poetry, or the scenery of a theatre to that of nature, for to cultivate grace of manners is not to supersede, but only to give expression to, nature in a certain way; it is not imitation from without, but development from within.

"For God's sake," writes Chesterfield, "sacrifice to the graces; keep out of all scrapes and quarrels ; know all ceremonies; maintain a seeming frankness, but a real reserve; have address enough to refuse without offending; some people are to be reasoned, some flattered, some intimidated, and some teazed into a thing." By his own statement, this course secured him only a life of refined servitude and a desolate old age, for the official dignity he enjoyed was pettishly abandoned from disappointment as to its incidental benefits. It is not, however, in a moral, but in a philosophical view, as a question of enlightened self-interest, that we demur to the authenticity of his doctrine. Its real defect is narrowness, the exaggeration of certain principles of action, an inharmonious view of the relation between character and behavior, an undue importance attached to secondary interests-in a word, an artificial system in absolute contradiction to prevalent