The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851Various
History
The International Magazine, Volume 4, No. 5, December 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
Now, what is the main charge here: that Mr. Bryant, while he has great
sympathy with external nature, with mountains and precipices, has no
sympathy with his fellow-man. 'Tis a weighty charge--the weightiest
that can be made against a man or a poet. It says virtually that he
has no soul, no heart, no impulse, no feeling, except for brutes and
vegetables; in short, that he is no better than a heathen savage, a
regular worshipper of stocks and stones, without natural affection, or
without God in the world. "For," as the apostle queries very wisely,
"if he love not man, whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he
hath not seen?" Your lines, then, Mr. Quiz, imply nothing less than
black, bleak, barren, unredeemed practical Atheism!
But can there be the remotest semblance of truth in them? Is our Bryant
such a heathen or atheist as not to know his fellow-men except they
present themselves in the disguise of mountains, or he see them, like
the prophet, as trees walking? We appeal to you, young ladies, who have
been melted into tears by his pathos. We appeal to you, young men,
whose every purpose of good has been quickened into livelier action by
his words; and to you, old heads, whose experience has learned a riper
and mellower wisdom from his fine meditative views of the ends and aims
of life.
Yet, before you render your concurrent answers, with somewhat of
indignation that anybody could put you upon the task, let us, in good
American sort, begin with a few statistics. This is a question of fact,
and since it has been raised, we will determine it by facts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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