24 THE FATE OF GENIUS; OR, A SKETCH OF MY FRIEND P-. CHAPTER I. "How unhappy is the fate of genius!" said I to myself, as I drew near the residence of my friend P-. "How unfortunate, how mysterious, that 'science' self' should ever destroy her favorite sons,' concealing, even in their devotion to their own and others' improvement, the arrow that shall lay them low!" I expected to find my friend in the condition of the Indian warrior, who, having sung his own death-song, calmly awaits his approaching fate. Of course, the hollow tone of his voice and the tomb-like expression of his countenance, did not surprise me. He was resting his pale brow upon his still paler fingers when I entered, apparently absorbed in deep meditation. "I was comparing the close of life," said he, after the first salutations were over, "with the setting of yonder sun. When the last beams of that sun are shining, they are attended by a kind of gloominess, which is prevented from remaining with us only by the certainty that the morning will bring with it again the returning light. So when the life of man is verging towards its close, the clouds begin to gather over the blank and barrenness of the grave, but faith, immortal and immortalizing, pierces through their shade, and beholds the soul still living in all its original brightness. Such is the case with me. I can see through the gloom which is around me into fairer fields and brighter skies beyond. And yet, yes, it is a truth, and I must out with it-my mind loves this sadness, loves to dwell mourfully over its lost hopes, and over the darkness which now rests upon it, though it does this with as little reason as we might suppose the sun to mourn over the scenes it had passed by in its midday course." It may, perhaps, be a matter of surprise to some, to learn that notwithstanding this confession, my friend still believed himself altogether uninfluenced by motives of worldly ambition. Yet so it was. When I mentioned it, "Ambition!" he retorted, "what have I to do with ambition? To be sure, it was once my ruling passion, but experience has taught me that all its crowns are made of thorns. It is not from motives of pride or policy, nor is it from a desire to be greater or more learned than others, that my powers are exhausted in endless toil; it is to satisfy the instinctive desires of the soul, to enlarge, and purify, and enlighten the faculties which God has given me,-and this is not ambition. And these melancholy feelings-they are no more than what every one feels on looking into the past-and the more we look back, the more intense, and the more interesting they become; surely these are not feelings of disappointed ambition. From this may be learned the most prominent characteristics of my friend's mind during his last illness; but, lest it be thought an act of desecration to lead the uninitiated beyond the vestibule of his thoughts and emotions, I must pause to ask the reader if his feelings accord with mine. If they do not-if he can look back into the past upon a continued series of successes and propitious fortunes, and can behold nought but bright visions in the long vista of the future; if he has never felt "a green and yellow melancholy" creeping over his features, and stealing with a silent influence through all the veins and arteries of his heart, he will probably be unprepared to sympathize with one whose hopes were broken, crushed, dashed to the ground, at an hour when they should have appeared the brightest. If, on the contrary, he can say with me that he has often had such feelings, and that they have been "like the memory of joys that are past, sweet and mournful to the soul," I will introduce him to a more particular acquaintance with that friend in whose society I had enjoyed life's pleasures, but whose sun was soon about to set forever. And that I may do this, the reader must consent to go back with me into the past, yet not far-for it is not long since-it was when the year was just bursting into youth, and the freshness of a new and lively verdure was creeping over the earth-when the birds were upon every spray, and their eloquent music upon every breath of every breeze;-I spent a few days with P-. His mortal frame was gradually wasting away with disease, and he felt, as he himself expressed it, that the chilling damps of death were gathering and darkening upon him. Yet his soul was unclouded, and his mental vision clear and distinct. He had been a student, like myself; and to say that he had been aspiring and full of the fire of genius; to say that he had entered the University with high and soaring thoughts, with lively, burning energies, and with the most ardent hopes and anticipations, would be to say no more than every student would readily imagine. And to say that he was shut up, as in the cloisters of a monastery, "afar from the untasted sun-beam;" to say that he taxed his mental faculties, until-not those energies, but-his bodily powers had become completely exhausted and worn down, would be saying only that which too many, alas! might read as a portion of their own sad history. And again, to speak of thoughtless employments in the country, in the place of intellectual pursuits; to speak of rural scenery, of the fresh and free air of his native hills, of seeking a lost treasure in the surrounding woodlands, in the music of the eloquent waters, or on the inspiring cliffs of the mountains, would be but to remind some of my readers of the advice of their physicians, and of the earnest solicitations of their friends. Perhaps, too, the mention of these things would recall to the minds of some, the many regrets, the many a sad thought lingering, long lingering, behind, as they left the halls of learning to return, as invalids, to the pursuits of the vulgar world. I shall therefore pass them by without remark. It is enough for me to say, that my friend sought the "sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not ;" but did not find in them the restorers of his "lost treasure," for so he called it. His mind was wholly absorbed in itself, or, at least, in thoughts of other things than of the active world around him. If the gay spring greeted him with her cheerful smiles; if he beheld the beauties that are abroad in the summer fields; if the ten thousand voices of nature that are continually thrilling from her silver strings charmed him; it was only to harrow up his soul with new and increased desires for knowledge. Thus, when left without a guide to grope alone, in the wide world of facts and observations, it is not strange that his vision was often obscured with a sadness and gloom, which rested on even the consecrated scenes and recollections of childhood, and which rendered deeply painful the anxious solicitudes and well-meant kindnesses of friends. Those who have ever known the sweets of melancholy, who have ever experienced the luxury of a tear, will readily understand the meaning of this. They will know how to enter into the feelings which prompted P-, in the use of language like the following: "I have kind friends," said he, "but they do not understand me; they do not know my wants. Indeed, who that has never been a student, can understand a student? Who can justly estimate the demands of an intellectual nature, those ever-active, unsatisfied aspirations of the soul, of which the unlearned have no conception? Ah! poor physicians are they all! And their kindness— yes, Heaven reward them for their good intentions!—their kindness might heal a broken limb, or a broken head, but it cannot heal a broken heart! It only increases one's misery by showing him the depth of his wound; and I always regard such kindness, such sympathy, as a kind of death-symptom! But you," he continued, fixing his eyes upon me, "you are a student and can understand me. You have seen at least some clouds gathering in your horizon-have seen the shadows pass over your hopes, and therefore, you can feel a kindred sympathy with one whose sky is utterly dark, and whose every hope, but heaven, is perished and gone forever. Your sympathy will be a luxury, because it will originate in feelings coincident with mine; but the sympathy of those who cannot enter into my emotions only aggravates my misery." Such and similar language of P-, in regard to the anxieties, the cares and the dark forebodings of his friends, together with his habits of close, continued thought, on every subject which particularly arrested his attention, convinced me at once, that however far he might be from the dry atmosphere of books, yet his mind would never be at rest. When thinking of himself, his thoughts were, for the most part, on the dark side of life; and when he looked abroad, there was a something within which could not be satisfied,-a certain thirsting after knowledge, the craving of the soul, and it gnawed and gnawed his heart to the very core. As I watched the strong and oft repeated efforts of his mental energies, I saw but too plainly that his feeble frame would be unable much longer to restrain his spirit from its upward flight. Yes, he had already begun to die; but the beginning of death is sometimes, in more senses than one, the beginning of life. Pain and disease constitute the grand commencement of death to the body, but they often seem,-the reason why I cannot tell,while they prey upon the earth-born tenement, to breathe new life into the soul, and to quicken all its susceptibilities and energies. The active mind often becomes more excitable,-more clear in its apprehensions,-as the bodily health declines. Especially is this the case in those slow, wasting diseases which a too close application of the intellectual powers induces. The tide of human emotions is never at rest; and, in the cases referred to, every cord of feeling is awake to the slightest touch; and the mind seems to acquire a keener perception from its repeated glances into eternity. So it was with P-. What had before been clouded with mysticism and conjecture, now appeared in the full blaze of day, as undoubted realities, or as empty dreams. He spoke of the wisdom and the follies of the world; of its many sorrows and trials, and of the hope that lies beyond them; of ill health and its consolations; of the nature of the soul, ever aspiring after knowledge, yet never satisfied; chained down to a form of clay, yet soaring through distant worlds; enveloped in darkness, yet dwelling in light inapproachable. And while his mind was thus glancing, repeatedly, as I have said, from earth to heaven, and back again from heaven to earth, the deep earnestness of his manner, and the nobler than earth-born expression of his countenance, seemed to indicate a real connection between the realities of time and his fond imaginings of futurity. The hollow cough, too, which occasionally interrupted his utterance, appeared to me to be a warning voice from the grave. These things, the clearness of his mind, and the fact of his standing, apparently, on the borders of two worlds,-conspired together to impress an air of sanctity upon every word that fell from his lips. His language, the peculiar grace and beauty of the words he used, I will not describe. Of the strength and fervor with which his thoughts were expressed; of the vividness of conception manifested in them, and of the richness of imagery employed in their illustration, I will say nothing; for of these a faint idea, perhaps, may be gained from the sketch I shall attempt to give, in one or more succeeding chapters, of some of the conversations which then passed between us. But when it is remembered how much the power of these might be, as in fact it was, increased by the peculiar looks and accents which he employed, it will easily be perceived that the hope to give a just picture of them would be vain; and that the attempt so to do would be like the attempt to give, in the beautiful figure of another, from the withered gleanings of the hay-stack, a just idea of the fragrant meadow, adorned and variegated by the innumerable flowers, that look out from the bosom, or move with the surface of the waving green. If, then, the reader desires to know more of the active genius of an ambitious student; if he wishes to trace out the operations and energies of a mind continually agitated and excited by bodily infirmities; if, after having followed him from his toils on classic ground to the retirement of a home in the country, he still desires to pursue the invalid's history to its close; I can only promise, what necessity forbids me now, that those desires, so far as they are within my power, shall be gratified hereafter. TO THE NIGHT WIND IN AUTUMN. WHENCE art thou, gentle wind, Soothing, with thy low voice, the ear of night, |