Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 52, February, 1862», страница 16
JONATHAN TO JOHN
It don't seem hardly right, John,
When both my hands was full,
To stump me to a fight, John,—
Your cousin, tu, John Bull!
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess
We know it now," sez he,
"The lion's paw is all the law,
Accordin' to J.B.,
Thet's fit for you an' me!"
Blood ain't so cool as ink, John:
It's likely you'd ha' wrote,
An' stopped a spell to think, John,
Arter they'd cut your throat?
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess
He'd skurce ha' stopped," sez he,
"To mind his p-s an' q-s, ef thet weasan'
Hed b'longed to ole J.B.,
Instid o' you an' me!"
Ef I turned mad dogs loose, John,
On your front-parlor stairs,
Would it jest meet your views, John,
To wait an' sue their heirs?
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess,
I on'y guess," sez he,
"Thet, ef Vattel on his toes fell,
'T would kind o' rile J.B.,
Ez wal ez you an' me!"
Who made the law thet hurts, John,
Heads I win,—ditto, tails?
"J.B." was on his shirts, John,
Onless my memory fails.
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess,
(I'm good at thet,)" sez he,
"Thet sauce for goose ain't jest the juice
For ganders with J.B.,
No more than you or me!"
When your rights was our wrongs, John,
You didn't stop for fuss,—
Britanny's trident-prongs, John,
Was good 'nough law for us.
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess,
Though physic's good," sez he,
"It doesn't foller thet he can swaller
Prescriptions signed 'J.B.,'
Put up by you an' me!"
We own the ocean, tu, John:
You mus'n't take it hard,
Ef we can't think with you, John,
It's jest your own back-yard.
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess,
Ef thet's his claim," sez he,
"The fencin'-stuff 'll cost enough
To bust up friend J.B.,
Ez wal ez you an' me!"
Why talk so dreffle big, John,
Of honor, when it meant
You didn't care a fig, John,
But jest for ten per cent.?
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess,
He's like the rest," sez he:
"When all is done, it's number one
Thet's nearest to J.B.,
Ez wal ez you an' me!"
We give the critters back, John,
Coz Abram thought 't was right;
It warn't your bullyin' clack, John,
Provokin' us to fight.
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess
We've a hard row," sez he,
"To hoe jest now; but thet, somehow,
May heppen to J.B.,
Ez wal ez you an' me!"
We ain't so weak an' poor, John,
With twenty million people,
An' close to every door, John,
A school-house an' a steeple.
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess
It is a fact," sez he,
"The surest plan to make a Man
Is, Think him so, J.B.,
Ez much ez you or me!"
Our folks believe in Law, John;
An' it's for her sake, now,
They've left the axe an' saw, John,
The anvil an' the plough.
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess,
Ef't warn't for law," sez he,
"There'd be one shindy from here to Indy;
An' thet don't suit J.B.
(When't ain't 'twixt you an' me!)"
We know we've gut a cause, John,
Thet's honest, just, an' true;
We thought't would win applause, John,
Ef nowheres else, from you.
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess
His love of right," sez he,
"Hangs by a rotten fibre o' cotton:
There's natur' in J.B.,
Ez wal ez you an' me!"
The South says, "Poor folks down!" John,
An' "All men up!" say we,—
"White, yaller, black, an' brown, John:
Now which is your idee?"
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess,
John preaches wal," sez he;
"But, sermon thru, an' come to du,
Why, there's the old J.B.
A-crowdin' you an' me!"
Shall it be love or hate, John?
It's you thet's to decide;
Ain't your bonds held by Fate, John,
Like all the world's beside?
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess
Wise men forgive," sez he,
"But not forget; an' some time yet
Thet truth may strike J.B.,
Ez wal ez you an' me!"
God means to make this land, John,
Clear thru, from sea to sea,
Believe an' understand, John,
The wuth o' bein' free.
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess,
God's price is high," sez he;
"But nothin' else than wut He sells
Wears long, an' thet J.B.
May learn like you an' me!"
* * * * *
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES
The Cloister and the Hearth; or, Maid, Wife, and Widow. A Matter-of-Fact Romance. By CHARLES READE, Author of "Never too Late to Mend," etc., etc. New York: Rudd & Carleton. 8vo.
The novels of Charles Reade are generally marked not only by individuality of genius, but by individualisms of egotism and caprice. The latter provoke the reader almost as much as the former gives him delight. It disturbs the least critical mind to find the keenest insight in company with the loudest bravado, and the statement of a wise or beautiful thought followed up by a dogmatic assertion of infallibility as harsh as a slap on the face. The indisposition to recognize such a genius comes from the fact that he irritates as well as stimulates the minds he addresses. Everybody reads him, but the fooling he inspires is made up of admiration and exasperation. The public is both delighted and insulted. He not only does not attempt to conceal his contemptuous sense of superiority to common men, but he absolutely screeches and bawls it out. Fearful that the dull Anglo-Saxon mind cannot appreciate his finest strokes, he emphasizes his inspirations not merely by Italics, but by capitals, thus conveying his brightest wit and deepest contrivances by a kind of typographic yell. Were there not a solid foundation of observation, learning, genius, and conscience to his work, his egotistic eccentricities would awake a tempest of hisses. Being, in reality, superficial and not central, they are readily pardoned by discerning critics. Even these, however, must object to his disposition to cluck or crow, in a manner altogether unseemly, whenever he hits upon a thought of more than ordinary delicacy or depth.
It is but just to say, in palliation of this fault, that Mr. Reade's insolent tone is not peculiar to him. It characterizes almost every prominent person who has attempted to mould the opinions of the age. We find it in Macaulay, Carlyle, Ruskin, and Kingsley, as well as in Reade. Modesty is not the characteristic of the genius of the nineteenth century; and the last thing we look for in any powerful work of the present day is toleration for other minds and opposing opinions. Each capable person who puts in his thumb and pulls out a plum draws instantly the same inference which occurred to the first explorer of the Christmas-pie. Charles Reade has no reservation at all, and boldly echoes Master Horner's sage conclusion.
"The Cloister and the Hearth," in spite of its faults, is really a great book. It is a positive contribution to history as well as to romance. It would be vain to point to any other volume which could convey to common minds so clear and accurate a conception of European life in the fifteenth century as this. The author has deeply studied the annals, memoirs, and histories which record the peculiarities of that life, and he has carried into the study a knowledge of those powers and passions of human nature which are the same in every age. The result is a "romance of history" which contains more essential truth than the most labored histories; for the writer is a man who has both the heart to feel and the imagination to conceive the realities of the time about which he writes.
The characterization of the book is original, various, and powerful. It ranges from the lowest hind to the most exquisite representative of female tenderness and purity. The scenes of passion show a clear conception of and a strong hold upon the emotional elements of character, and a capacity to exhibit their most terrible workings in language which seems identical with the feelings it so burningly expresses. In vigor and vividness of description and narration the novel excels any of Reade's previous books. The plot is about the same as that of "The Good Fight," though the dénouement is different. "The Cloister and the Hearth," indeed, incorporates "The Good Fight" in its pages, but the latter forms not more than a fourth of the extended work. Altogether the romance must be classed among the best which have appeared during the last twenty years.
Lessons in Life. A Series of Familiar Essays. By TIMOTHY TITCOMB. New York: Charles Scribner, 16 mo.
Who is more popular than honest Timothy? Opening this, his latest volume, we read on, a fly-leaf fronting the title-page that twenty-six editions of the "Letters to Young People," fifteen editions each of "Bitter-Sweet" and "Gold Foil," and thirteen editions of "Miss Gilbert's Career" have gone the way of all good books. The author says, in his modest preface to the "Lessons," that he can hardly pretend to have done more than to organize and put into form the average thinking of those who read his books, and be only claims for his essays that they possess the quality of common sense. He herein pays a very high compliment to the crowd which demands over the bookseller's counter so many thousands of his volumes. Wisdom, admirably put, is not a commodity glutting the market every day. We find in the pages of this new venture so many healthy maxims and so much excellent advice, that we hope the volume will spread itself farther and wider than any of its predecessors. This wish fulfilled will give it no mean circulation. "The Ways of Charity," one of the papers in this volume, ought to be printed in tract form, and scattered broadcast everywhere. And there are other articles in the book quite as good as this.
English Sacred Poetry of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries. Selected and edited by ROBERT ARIS WILLMOTT, M.A. Illustrated by Holman Hunt, John Gilbert, and others. London: Routledge & Co. 4to.
Mr. Willmott has considerable reputation for judgment and taste as a compiler. He knows a good poem afar off, and his chief pleasure seems to lie in reproducing from old books the excellent things that time has spared to us. His last contribution to the stock of elegant volumes is this very handsome book of English Sacred Poetry. The illustrations are by no means equally good, but the majority of them are satisfactory. Delicious bits of English landscape scenery peep out along the pages, as one turns the leaves of this beautiful collection. An old village church rising among the graves of centuries, a bird's-nest snug and warm in the boughs of a mossy tree, a group of old-time worshippers gathered on the grass, a brook making its way through flower-enamelled banks, a shepherd with his flock couched on the hill-side, and other similar scenes of quiet and rest, abound in this volume. The printer and the binder have produced as luxurious a specimen of their respective arts as we have seen from the British holiday press.
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Wolfert's Roost, and other Papers. Now first collected. By Washington Irving. Author's Revised Edition. New York. G.P. Putnam. 12mo. pp. 383, 46. $1.50.
