SUNSHINE IN THOUGHT.

CHAPTER FIRST.

"In a literary point of view, ours is a melancholy age. Wertherism has invaded every department, and given birth to one perpetual voice of wailing and lamentation. In vain do we seek the 'royal cheerfulness' of SHAKSPEARE and SPENSER, the self-assured manliness of BEN JONSON, the jovial humor of CHAUCER. In fact, the witty writers of this century, such as JERROLD, HOOD, and HEINE, employ their genius in ridiculing the follies of the times-laugh at us rather than with us-and not unfrequently their best points are the saddest of commentaries on the saddest of ages. Weeping and wailing is the prevailing fashion of our day, and Odes to Melancholy, and a long and ever-increasing catalogue of sighs for the Unattained '-which is more properly the sheer impossible-make up the staple of modern literature."-HOWARD H. CALDWELL.

THE reader who has been in the habit of examining critically and impartially any number of literary journals published in the United States, has possibly observed that a great proportion of the poetry, and in fact, of all the purely literary effort in the publications in question, is characterized by a decided and frequently morbid melancholy. If it be remembered that the popular American mind, when not under serious influences, is eminently humorous or dryly ironical, sending out daily in an unpretending, popular way, in type, more ex

quisitely absurd and daringly grotesque stories or squibs than the whole press of Europe produces in a week, this interminable wailing in the higher circles will seem singular enough. More natural would it be for a young, brave. hearted race, so near in many relations to that nature which it is so vigorously subduing, to exult, to be elevated over its great works into something like serenity and cheerfulness. We can understand the fearful melancholy of the Russian serf, so sadly yet powerfully depicted by Iskander Herzen; we know what was the dreadful spirit of torture and degradation which bore for long, sad centuries upon myriad millions of Slavonian hearts; and when we hear the wailing song of the Troïka; of the sorrowing postillion driving his sleigh along the snowy waste, singing, to the accompaniment of one mournful tinkling bell, of the blue eyes which he shall never see again; casting a last glance at the grave of the loved one; why, then, all appears real and truthful enough; it is as intelligible as the amiable stupidity, the slightly smiling sorrow of a tipsy serf. "For suffering is the badge of all his tribe," and certain it is that there is no affectation, no art-dilettantism in the pathos of such songs-least of all, in their music. Music never lies. She is in every country a truer national language of feeling than the mother tongue.

But that free and brave Anglo-Saxondom, and especially free and young America, should be so intensely mournful, seems absurd, until we analyze the causes. Then, in

deed, we are led back to a Puritanism forced, by the antagonism of political oppressions which are now almost extinct, into keeping holidays sadly, and singing psalms when one would be merry; all well and heroic, or certainly unavoidable in its day, but now without its salt, and insipid. Then, too, we find a vast amount of half-developed, halfread genius; the genius of mere youth, which is prone through vanity to indulge in Byronic admiration of its own fancied sorrows, not learning, till the rough and hearty world has knocked it lustily through a few real troubles, how much better it is to make the best of everything. In fact, the great popularity of sad poets and poetry is partly grounded on the inexperienced sentiment of such readers. When these readers themselves write, they reëcho the old wail, and as most of them write only during youth, leaving poetry in due time for labor, the consequence is a constant inundation of tears- -a luxuriance of mental powers spent in weakening and mutually disheartening the world, which might far better be devoted to strengthening and encouraging it.

Though we are untiring as a nation in our practical labor; though our industrial progress is wonderful, and its results apparently gratifying, it is still made every day more evident that a great proportion of our hard work is constantly lost through miscalculation. There are always more leaks in the boiler than the engineer knows of. But our physical waste is as nothing to our mental loss of power; to our utter cxtravagance of intellect sacrificed to false

sentiment and sorrow. In our literature and art, like the barbarians of all ages, we destroy in memory of the dead the riches which would make the living happy, but console ourselves, amid rags and misery, with the sorely proud thought that it was such a beautiful funeral! We give to pain and pathos the energy which would be better bestowed on genial exertion, and console ourselves with the artificial beauty of its expression, or with the vain enjoyment of the romantic morality which it is assumed to involve.

If it is melancholy, indeed, to reflect that so much talent is annually sacrificed to melancholy, or squandered as, was said, on funereal rites, we can at least derive some grim satisfaction from the reflection that a certain proportion of it would have been inevitably wasted on some other form of that folly which is generally assumed to be a constant quantity in the world's economy. But, with many persons, there is a deeply-seated conviction that there is no waste of power in gratifying morbid sorrow. They believe it to be a direct cultivation of morality and all virtue to cherish misery. In thus wasting on funereal griefs their sham finefeelings, they resemble the Chinese, who burn or throw away vast quantities of counterfeit bank-bills and forged letters of credit when burying their friends, and with much the same object-"to fool the devil with." For certainly if there be a form in which mere folly approaches the diabolical, it is in this weakening, demoralizing, constant playing with sorrow, and tampering with the painfully moving

emotions of the soul. It is profanity and a desecration of the heart's most secret feelings.

In the humbler walks of literature, which indicate most nearly and accurately the tendencies of our people when their thoughts aspire to artistic expression, this affectation, or reality, of dumps and desolation, is copiously, and sometimes rather comically manifested. Let the reader, when an opportunity occurs, look over a morning's mail of editor's exchange-papers from different parts of the country. There will be found, among the original poetry in the collection, more merit than is generally supposed to inspire such lyrics, and with the merit there will be an overwhelming proportion of misery. I have found in such searches that sometimes four fifths of the whole were devoted to wailing over long lost but evidently imaginary loves; to sorrows awakened by blue skies and fresh breezes into vanity-fed antagonism to the bustling "world," which is vulgar enough to like such things—and be it observed, reader, that the flattest snobbishness of Art and Poetry consists in the affectation of feelings apart from those of the world, instead of boldly claiming community with them and striving to elevate them—but it is needless to say of what such monodies consist. Dead Loras, Ruined Hopes, "lost Edens, buried Lenores," Little Graves. No joy, save in heaven; all ending in one mournful monotone: "Let us all be unhappy together!" One thing deserves remark in examining such a collection. Few of the bards of this Broken-Hearted and Hope-Bereaved Companie could glance over the assembled