The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844: Volume 23, Number 6Various
General
The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844: Volume 23, Number 6
Various
Periodicals
divine vocation, by the appointment of nature; and otherwise living,
should judge himself to be an abortion, a mistake, without signification
or use in a world like ours. And the beauty, the glory of such a life, is
not to be reckoned among ideal things heard out of heaven but never
encountered by the eye. This world has had its CHRIST, its FENELONS, its
HOWARDS, as well as its CALIGULAS and NEROS. Love hath been at times a
manifestation as well as a principle; and the train of its glory swept far
below the stars, and its brightness has fallen in mitigated and mellowed
rays from the faces of men. As the ambiguous stranger-star of Bethlehem
had its interpreting angel-song to the herdsmen of the plains, so loving
men in all ages have given glimpses and interpretations of the love of
GOD, and of the pity that is felt for the miserable and the guilty in the
palace and presence-chamber of JEHOVAH. What glory within the scope of
human imitation and attainment is comparable to that of the beneficent,
the sympathising lover of his race? What more elevated, pure, and
beautiful is possible among the achievements of an endless progression in
heaven itself? MILTON represents the profoundest emotions of joy and
wonder among the celestial hosts as occasioned by the first anticipative
disclosures of divine pity toward sinning man; and a greater than MILTON
assures us that the transport and festival of angelic joy occurs when Pity
lifts the penitent from his prostration and forgives his folly.' · · ·
EMBELLISHMENT would seem to be the literary order of the day, in more ways
than one. It has come to be the mode to express the most simple thought in
the most magniloquent phrase. This propensity to lingual _Euphuism_ has
given rise to sundry illustrations, in embellished maxims, which are
particularly amusing. They are of the sort so finely satirized by
'OLLAPOD,' on one occasion, two or three examples of which we annex. The
common phrase of ''Tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good' was
transformed into 'That gale is truly diseased which puffeth benefactions
to nonentity;' 'Let well enough alone,' into 'Suffer a healthy sufficiency
to remain in solitude;' and 'What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the
gander,' into 'The culinary adornments which suffice for the female of the
race _Anser_, maybe relished also with the masculine adult of the same
species.' Some London wag, in a kindred spirit, has illustrated the
cockney song, 'If I had a donkey as vouldn't go, do you think I'd wallop
him?' etc., as follows: 'The herbaceous boon and the bland recommendation
to advance, are more operative on the ansinine quadruped than the stern
imprecation and the oaken cudgel:
'Had I an ass averse to speed,
I ne'er would strike him; no indeed!
I'd give him hay, and cry 'Proceed,'
And 'Go on EDWARD!''
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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