Our brothers of the press have “rowed us up Salt River” so vigorously of late, that we are driven to steal their oars and build a raft to get home again, very glad indeed, by the way, that home is down stream, and we have nothing to do but cast off. Stand by while we lash the oars, and heaven keep us from snags and sawyers.
“N. P. Willis., We have ever spoken highly of the talents of this gentleman, but we heartily despite his affectation and dandyism.”, Portland Tribune.
Many thanks for your “high speaking”, oh, virtuous Tribune !, and your opinions are as high (in the game sense) as your speaking,, for you echo an accusation that has been dead these twenty years. Affected! La! We made up our mind full fifteen years ago that life was too short for any nonsense that didn’t pay! And if we have not since taken the shortest road to knowledge and money, have not been always briefer and more straightforward than the man we talked to, have not cut loose from all affectations and other hindrances, kept our keel free of such weeds and barnacles, and “gone our course” closer to the wind than other men, it is because we failed in the trying. Tut! who ever saw an affected man that would stand abusing for twenty years! You must change the venue, good fellow-Portlander! And dandyism! Come! we do rejoice that the reputation of it can be achieved so economically, the coat we wore the summer last past at Saratoga having done us three years of quotidian service! You lack tact, oh Tribune ! Take our advice, and never give the enemy a chance for a flourish of “indignant virtue!”
“It is a shame that he writes so few useful articles, and devotes so much of his time to scrutinizing the ladies’ dresses, fingers, lips, eyebrows and ankles.”, Portland Tribune.
Now what does the Tribune mean by a “useful article.” Stockings are useful, and the man who weaves them out of his wool, thinks they fulfil their destiny if they sell, and wear well, and make people want more of them. But that is the history of what we weave, out of our wool! We write nothing that don’t sell, nothing that don’t wear well, nothing that people don’t want more of! Heaven preserve us from a dependence for a livelihood upon such “useful articles” as the Tribune sets us for an example! We would, at least, sell, like stockings ! And as to our ” scrutinizings”, we shall take leave to look at ladies’ dresses, while there are ladies in them, and at their “lips and eyebrows,” if they will permit us to do so, without an endorsement of the permit by the Portland Tribune. Scrutinizing “their fingers and ancles” requires a little explanation. We are too innocent to know what the wretch means!
“Why not be a real man, and devote his talents to noble objects and criticize less the foolish fashions?”, Portland Tribune.
” There now ! Not a real man, after all! Oh murder! Book us for a sham, and then credit us for what shams may come to ! Will the “Tribune” give us the yield of his reality, by way of contrast! And are not the “foolish fashions” quite as proper a subject for criticism as Willis’s “affectation and dandyism !”
And here is another sermon preached at us from the wrong text:,
” If he supposes that by hiding his face in hair he adds to his comeliness, let him by all means do it; but let him not endeavour to persuade weaker heads than his own to imitate his example. If he thinks it becoming in a man of genius, in a being who believes he possesses an immortal soul, to convert himself into a walking sign-post of all that is outré in dandyism, let him do so ; but let him not try to make proselytes to his most ridiculous opinions.”
So says Mr. Prentice of the Louisville Journal, who, having shaken us once by the hand, should have taken pains to remember that we do not wear beard, and have long ago outgrown our dandyism. We have taken up the defence of beards, however, and having shown (in previous Mirrors) that nature intends as to wear them, and that diseases of the throat are the consequences of shaving, we refer the reader to good gospel authority, (which will be found on a previous page,) as to its propriety and dignity.
Our friend of the “Courier and Enquirer” has “let down a stitch in his broidery,” which we must take up for him:
“Of late years he has appeared so entirely engrossed by the frivolities of literature that his reputation, though brilliant and flattering to one greedy of clamorous applause, has fallen far below the level at which all nobly-gifted minds should aim. The great mass of what he has written since will have utterly perished, when these Sacred Poems, the work of his early and untainted years, will be read with delight by those whose praise is the best worth having.”
Two-thirds of these “Sacred Poems” were written within the last three years, and we do not think that “Jairus’s Daughter,” “David’s grief for his child,” “The Leper,” “Rizpah,” “The Baptism of Christ,” “Lines to Rev. Mr. White,” and one or two serious domestic poems in the same collection, all of recent production, show any inclination of the tree to depart from the bending of the twig. We write such poems with delight. If our brain were not overworked, come Saturday, we would never willingly pass a Sunday without some transfusion of poetry from the glowing and captivating fountains of the Bible. Every other vein of literature, except this only, is a task to us,, we assort it to be believed. But we must be excused, though our organ will play psalms, for grinding it to worldly tunes for a livelihood. If “those whose praise is best worth having” will pay us as much for “sacred poetry” as Graham and Godey pay us for what “will utterly perish,” we shall be as happy to leave oats for gross as an omnibus-horse turned out to pasture. A man who is catching fish for his dinner, don’t stop to think whether the bait “will utterly perish,” my dear colonel! No, no ! “First come first served !”, Mortality before immortality !
An anonymous correspondent, “J. E. R. of Troy,” writes us as follows about one of these “frivolities of literature” which the colonel thinks will “utterly perish:”,
“Many thanks for the exquisite sketch of’ Blanch Beaufin.’ And if it will give you any pleasure, I am empowered to thank you in behalf of a pair of the loveliest eyelids that ever ‘trembled over the page of romance.”
It is very pleasant, you see, to be even
“a spark
That needs must die, although its little beam
Reflects upon a diamond.”
But now, having fought the battle on our own hook, let us give our own readers on idea of “what Mrs. Grundy would say” if we really were to grow “virtuous,” and “have no more cakes and ale.” Here is a passage from a religious paper, the Baltimore Saturday Visitor:,
“The opening lecture before the Mercantile Library Association was delivered on Tuesday evening, by N. P. Willis. Though a decided failure, it did far more for the association than did that of Dr. Barnes for the Institute, having sold the course-tickets to a houseful, many of whom, no doubt, paid two dollars to see the famed author of ‘inimitable nothings.’ The failure grew out of the fact, that Willis foolishly imagined that he was expected to act the part of a grave instructor, which led him to take up such a subject as the formation of character, instead of gossipping about the novelties of travel, the pleasures of the country and town contrasted, the laws of fashionable life, or some other characteristic theme. We do not mean to have it inferred that he said nothing worth listening to, for the lecture contained some capital hints on the subject of intellectual and moral culture, and more philosophy by far than we anticipated from Willis, To Be Plain. His views of intellectual progress chimed quite well with our own. They are views, too, which the world had better cherish. With him we believe that the growth of intellect, commenced in the present state of existence, will be resumed in the future life and progress on a like principle, in other words, that the wilfully ignorant Christian (if such there can be) cannot expect to be placed on an equality with the Christian of cultivated mind, when they shall have been transferred to the future world. The more intelligence on earth the more bliss in heaven, provided the moral faculties have been correspondingly educated, is our firm belief, looking upon the present physico-intellectual life as the model of that which is to come. This view, as hinted by Mr. Willis, would serve as the best of motives to mental culture, if generally adopted.
“The brevity of this lecture was provoking. When it closed the audience stared at each other, as if asking, ‘What’s the matter ?, What are you going so soon for?’ As a matter of right to the audience, if not to his liberal-paying employers, he ought to have, at least, doubled forty minutes, which only he actually consumed. However, the ladies had time enough to ‘get a peep at Mr. Willis,’ whose appearance, doubtless, disappointed them, dressing, as he did, like anything rather than a ‘fop.’
“And, after this, we think we may venture to quote the winding-up of a two-column castigation given to us by the “Guardian,” a religious paper printed at Columbia, Tennessee :,
“Is Mr.Willis ignorant of the meaning of the word coxcomb ? Has he no respect, we will not say for the literary taste, but , for the manly feeling and the honest common sense of his readers ? But we check our indignation ; for Mr. W., conscious of his dandyism, and knowing well the contempt with which every dignified mind must regard it, yet knows perfectly well what he is about. Even such nonsense as his ‘Beverley Correspondence’ is eagerly sought after by multitudes of our countrymen, and of our countrywomen, we add with unfeigned sorrow and humiliation. The cheap literature of the last ten years has done more to vitiate and degrade our national literary taste than can well be conceived. To this degradation Mr. W. is openly contributing. He is prostituting talents of the most brilliant order, an exquisitely-refined taste in elegant letters, and powers of writing such as have fallen to the lot of very few men indeed, to purposes that must, some day or other, fill him with the liveliest mortification. He pursues this debasing course, not in the ardour of inexperienced and impulsive youth, a portion of the American press has wasted its reproofs upon him for nearly twenty years. We do not charge him with pandering to any vicious propensity in his readers. His fault lies in losing sight of what should be the high and virtuous aims of a scholar, and contenting himself with amusing the listless and ‘dawdling.’ ”
From: The New Mirror. Vol. 2, No. 9, Dec. 2, 1843.