450 THE POETIC TEMPERAMENT. In the last paper we presented a few thoughts respecting the essence and peculiar qualities of the poetic temperament, speaking of sensibility as its soul, of the beauties of nature as its food, and of imagination as "bodying forth" with all forms and hues its inspired musings. There is, however, another view, to our hearts at least if not to our minds, more interesting than this, since it regards human happiness. It is that of its effects upon its pos sessor. To the contemplative mind it will appear a wise counsel of Providence, that we are endowed with such unequal degrees of sensibility and such different feelings, as to be variously affected by the circumstances that surround us. Thus the world is divested of monotony, life becomes a drama of action and interest, and the limits of happiness are enlarged. The capability of enjoyment or wretchedness possessed by any being depends unquestionably upon the degree of sensibility existing in his temper. His actual greater or less experience of either, it is as evident, must depend upon the various influences thrown around the place of his abode. In the world we inhabit there are many sources of pleasure, many of pain; and according to the different sensibilities of men, their lives, it is seen, are blended of varied colors more or less deep and distinct. There are some whom no joy greatly elates or grief depresses; who look to the past with no keen recollections, to the present with no eager interest, to the future with no vivid anticipations. Their days, marked by no periods of passion or excitement, pass on so unvaried through youth, manhood, and age, that the slumbers of death seem little else than a continuance of their sluggish repose. There are others whose whole existence is made up of interest and agitation. For, as there is never a time when the influences around us cease to exert their power, they are constantly affected with emotions of sadness or delight. In a word, with them life is feeling. As it is, however, the condition of existence to receive pleasure mingled with pain, to find our anticipations of the future clouded with fear, the memories of the past with regret, it has been questioned whether a man of cold temperament and blunt feelings does not enjoy more happiness than one like the poet of acute sensibilities. In comparing the conditions of these two classes, some writers have been led, we conceive, by their strong antipathies, into partial error. For while expressing a just contempt for the cold and senseless things that seem, instead of a "little lower than the angels," but a little higher than the beasts, they have strongly contrasted with their dull pleasures the happiness flowing from a keen sensibility, without sufficiently reflecting it may also be the source of equal misery; nay, it has even been said that one moment of rapturous bliss is worth an age of such brute enjoyment, and might well compensate for years of wretchedness. That no transient joy, however deep, can be an equivalent for lasting pain though at any moment trivial, or equal to abiding pleasure though feeble in its nature, is most evident, since the bare presence of either in the mind is enough to characterize its condition as happy or miserable, and the mind is such as to estimate its feelings less by their momentary power than by their long continuance. And if, again, a delicate susceptibility is to bring a man through life the most excruciating anguish in an equal degree with exquisite delight, it were surely to be gladly exchanged for a more equable temperament, that will be neither raised so high, nor so low depressed. For pain has, so to speak, a more positive effect than pleasure. The anticipation of it is more vivid and agitating, the reality more searching and powerful, while the remembrance of it, though affording a kind of pleasure from the contrast with present felicity, yet when attended with, what experience would warrant, the certainty of its recurrence, serves but to add poignancy to the dread of future suffering. Thus the same mind receives a greater amount of pain from a period of suffering, than of pleasure from an equal period of enjoyment. But this excess of painful emotion must evidently be greater in proportion as the feelings are more acute and refined, for the reason that persons of dull sensibilities rarely recur to the past or explore the future, but confine themselves to the narrow circle of the present. Such a kind of life, though a nearer approach to the animal, is, notwithstanding, far less subject to the intrusious of pain, than that of more sensitive beings, since all observation teaches that every descent from the higher sources of feeling and passion towards the sluggishness of brute existence presents a less pure but a more unvaried current of happiness. This has, indeed, been styled by some a negative state of being-absence of suffering rather than presence of enjoyment, without, however, any good reason, since bare existence if free from pain is real felicity. All this, moreover, is confirmed by what is unquestionably true, that no being would wish extatic bliss, if as thrilling agony for an equal time were to precede or follow it. But while thus much is due to reason and truth, it is not to be denied that one of our race may, if he will, receive more delight than sorrow from the various circumstances of his being and abode. What sources of happiness does the poetic temperament open to its possessor in the external world and in the depths of his own nature? The first which presents itself from without consists in man's social relations. There is but one being in the universe who can live in solitude and be happy. HE "dwelleth alone from eternity." All others are bound together by cords of interest and sympathy, that may not be broken without loss of happiness. The human race, especially, are endowed with affections and faculties which render them so dependent upon each other for much of their enjoyment, that whoever knows not the ties of friendship, kindred, and country, rarely fails of living a wretched existence. He, then, it is evident, will receive the highest pleasure through life, who is best fitted by nature to feel their power. But the poet, we have seen, should possess those sweet sensibilities which are won most easily by the calls of affection, and touched by the sympathies of humanity. We know it is urged, indeed, and with too much foundation in the sad experience of many, that the delights of social life are so far overbalanced by its anxieties and sorrows, its follies and crimes, that the sensitive mind cannot fail to be filled by them with constant pain. Reflection, however, will educe a different conclusion, in the case at least of those whose own hearts are pure. For it is universally confessed, that a feeling heart derives the sweetest pleasure from alleviating the distresses of a fellow being, that life's blessings are made more precious by its troubles, and that sympathy, sorrow, and the anxieties of love, are mingled with rapture. We have seen, moreover, that the poet should possess a living imagination, and this is always accompanied by hope, the constant refuge from the miseries and cares of life. United they throw a rainbow over the stormy present, from its dark realities transport the soul to brighter scenes in the future, and by the very contrast with past sorrows, enhance the fancied bliss to come. On earth anticipation is often smaller than fruition, and to the man of feeling, imagination, and hope, far more than to another, are the glories of the eternal world unveiled. Again, no earthly delight is more pure, constant and lasting than that which flows from universal nature. The joys of affection are deeper and more powerful in their course, but the depraved passions of men check their flow. Time will corode the chain of friendship and extinguish the flame of love. Wealth, honor, power, hold forth their dazzling garlands, which still allure the weary step but elude the grasp, or if they are attained, fruition becomes disgust. So, likewise, is all other happiness springing merely from things of earth decaying and evenescent. But the pleasures inspired by all the influences of nature, and especially by the contemplation of her visible forms, are ever fresh, ever enchanting. As the emotions received through the medium of the senses, beginning with the dawn of perception, are felt sooner than those arising from the natural affections, her charms, if we are born to feel, enlist our earliest sensations. As life advances, youth, manhood, and age they successively attract with new delight, and the last rays of existence love to linger and dwell upon them. To the child, therefore, of sensibility and fancy—to the poet-they are a source of living pleasure. When weary, as he may often be, of the follies and vices of society, he can at all times find among the haunts of solitude, a joy as deep as the mysteries of his being and sublime as the majesty and power of God. Besides these external sources of happiness, the beauties of nature, and the relations of social life, the poet possesses others existing solely in his own temper. For he ever engages in deeper study and gains a deeper insight than another into the mystery, of his being and of universal nature; and to the human mind the contemplation of things sublime, profound beyond its sphere of knowledge, is an ineffable though fearful pleasure. He cannot describe his delight, but it is always present with him; for he is led to contemplate such things by his sensibility and imagination, the very qualities that distinguish him from the rest of mankind. The man of shallow soul and meager fancy cares little to explore such unknown regions. And this, also, is to the poet an unfailing source of enjoyment, since of the subjects of his contemplation a clear knowledge is never gained. Mystery is a mighty, unbroken spell over all the universe. Again, in the creations of his fancy, and in embodying its fleeting images, "giving to airy nothing, A local habitation and a name," the poet takes unceasing delight. When weary of the cares of life, when sickened by the vices of men, and the consequent wretchedness and ruin, that deform the fair earth, he can retire to a world of his own and lose in its bright creations the remembrance of such miseries. All colors of heaven and earth are his at will, blended in scenes fairer than fabled Elysium or a Grecian's dreams. Over the darkest hour of his life he can throw, for a brief space at least, the light of perfect bliss, cheating the "cold reality." When Dante was driven from his native land to wander an exile, were not his heart and memory beguiled by the fearful and the lovely scenes through which he passed on his solitary way? They were not the scenes of earth, but moving through worlds of his own creation, he saw on the one hand the terrors of the infernal region of despair and darkness and the peopled realms of penal fire; on the other bright abodes and beings, fairer than aught seen or fabled, dwelling in the full fruition of celestial bliss. A captive bard lay chained in his grated cell, shut in from the light of heaven, the loveliness of earth, the faces of friends, and familiar voices. Was Tasso alone or miserable? As |
