The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862

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He claims, too--being a modest man--and others who know him best
acknowledge his claims, we see--that he revolutionized _Blackwood_ and
the British periodical press, at a time when they were all against us;
that he began the war on titles in this country, that he broke up the
lottery system and the militia system, and proposed (through the
_Westminster Review_) the only safe and reasonable plan of emancipation
that ever appeared; that with him originated the question of woman's
rights; that he introduced gymnasia to our people; and, in short, that
he has always been good for something, and always lived to some purpose.
'And furthermore deponent sayeth not.'

THE SOLDIER AND THE CIVILIAN.

When Charles Dickens expressed regret for having written his foolish
_American Notes_, and _Martin Chuzzlewit_, he 'improved the occasion' to
call us a large-hearted and good-natured people, or something to that
effect--I have not his _peccavi_ by me, and write from 'a favorable
general impression.'

It is not weak vanity which may lead any American to claim that in this
compliment lies a great truth. The American _is_ large-hearted and
good-natured, and when a few of his comrades join in a good work, he
will aid them with a lavish and Jack-tar like generosity. Charity is
peculiarly at home in America. A few generations have accumulated, in
all the older States, hospitals, schools, and beneficent institutions,
practically equal in every respect to those which have been the slow
growth of centuries in any European country. The contributions to the
war, whether of men or money, have been incredible. And there is no
stint and no grumbling. The large heart is as large and generous as
ever.

The war has, however, despite all our efforts, become an almost settled
institution. This is a pity--we all feel it bitterly, and begin to grow
serious. Still there is no flinching. Flinching will not help; we must
go on in the good cause, in God's name. 'Shall there not be clouds as
well as sunshine?' 'Go in, then'--that is agreed upon. Draft your men,
President Lincoln; raise your money, Mr. Chase, we are ready. To the
last man and the last dollar we are ready. History shall speak of the
American of this day as one who was as willing to spend money for
national honor as he was earnest and keen in gathering it up for private
emolument. Go ahead!

But let us do every thing advisedly and wisely.

In the first flush of war, it was not necessary to look so closely at
the capital. We pulled out our loose change and bank-notes, and
scattered them bravely--as we should. Now that more and still more are
needed, we should look about to see how to turn every thing to best
account. For instance, there is the matter of soldiers. Those who rose
in 1861, and went impulsively to battle, acted gloriously--even more
noble will it be with every volunteer who _now_, after hearing of the
horrors of war, still resolutely and bravely shoulders the musket and
dares fate. God sends these times to the world and to men as 'jubilees'
in which all who have lost an estate, be it of a calling or a social
position, may regain it or win a new one.

But still we want to present _every_ inducement. Already the lame and
crippled soldiers are beginning to return among us. The poor souls,
ragged and sun-burnt, may be seen at every corner. They sit in the parks
with unhealed wounds; they hobble along the streets, many of them weary
and worn; poor fellows! they are greater, and more to be envied than
many a fresh fopling who struts by. And the people feel this. They treat
them kindly, and honor them.

But would it not be well if some general action could be adopted on the
subject of taking care of all the incurables which this war is so
rapidly sending us? If every township in America would hold meetings and
provide honorably in some way for the returned crippled soldiers, they
would assume no great burden, and would obviate the most serious
drawback which the country is beginning to experience as regards
obtaining volunteers. It has already been observed by the press, that
the scattering of these poor fellows over the country is beginning to
have a discouraging effect on those who should enter the army. It is a
pity; we would very gladly ignore the fact, and continue to treat the
question solely _con entusiasmo_, and as at first; but what is the use
of endeavoring to shirk facts which will only weigh more heavily in the
end from being inconsidered now? Let us go to work generously,
great-heartedly, and good-naturedly, to render the life of every man who
has been crippled for the country as little of a burden as possible.

Dear readers, it will not be sufficient to guarantee to these men a
pauper's portion among you. I do not pretend to say what you should give
them, or what you should do for them. I only know that there are but two
nations on the face of the earth capable of holding town-meetings and
acting by spontaneous democracy for themselves. One of these is
represented by the Russian serfs, who administer their _mir_ or
'commune' with a certain beaver-like instinct, providing for every man
his share of land, his social position, his rights, so far as they are
able. The Englishman, or German, or Frenchman, is _not_ capable of this
natural town-meeting sort of action. He needs 'laws,' and government,
and a lord or a squire in the chair, or a demagogue on the rostrum. The
poor serf does it by custom and instinct.

The Bible Communism of the Puritans, and the habit of discussing all
manner of secular concerns in meeting, originated this same ability in
America. To this, more than to aught else, do we owe the growth of our
country. One hundred Americans, transplanted to the wild West and left
alone, will, in one week, have a mayor, and 'selectmen,' a town-clerk,
and in all probability a preacher and an editor. One hundred Russian
serfs will not rise so high as this; but leave them alone in the steppe,
and they will organize a _mir_, elect a _starosta_, or 'old man,' divide
their land very honestly, and take care of the cripples!

Such nations, but more especially the American, can find out for
themselves, much better than any living editor can tell them, how to
provide liberally for those who fought while they remained at home. The
writer may suggest to them the subject--they themselves can best 'bring
it out.'

In trials like these it is very essential that our habits of meeting,
discussing and practically acting on such measures, should be more
developed than ever. We have come to the times which _test_ republican
institutions, and to crises when the public meeting--the true
corner-stone of all our practical liberties--should be brought most
boldly, freely, and earnestly into action. Politics and feuds should
vanish from every honorable and noble mind, and all unite in cordial
cooeperation for the good work. Friends, there is _nothing_ you can not
do, if you would only get together, inspire one another, and do your
_very best_. You could raise an army which would drive these rebel
rascals howling into their Dismal Swamps, or into Mexico, in a month, if
you would only combine in earnest and do all you can.

Hitherto the man of ease, and the Respectable, disgusted by the
politicians, has neglected such meetings, and left them too much to the
Blackguard to manage after his own way. But this is a day of politics no
longer; at least, those who try to engineer the war with a view to the
next election, are in a fair way to be ranked with the enemies of the
country, and to earn undying infamy. The only politics which the honest
man now recognizes is, the best way to save the country; to raise its
armies and fight its battles. It is not McClellan or anti-McClellan,
which we should speak of, but anti-Secession. And paramount among the
principal means of successfully continuing the war, I place this, of
properly caring for the disabled soldier, and of placing before those
who have not as yet enlisted, the fact, that come what may, they will be
well looked after, for life.

As I said, the common-sense of our minor municipalities will abundantly
provide for these poor fellows, if a spirit can be awakened which shall
sweep over the country and induce the meetings to be held. In many,
something has already been done. But something liberal and large is
requisite. Government will undoubtedly do its share; and this, if
properly done, will greatly relieve our local commonwealths. Here,
indeed, we come to a very serious question, which has been already
discussed in these pages--more boldly, as we are told, than our
cotemporaries have cared to treat it, and somewhat in advance of others.
We refer to our original proposition to liberally divide Southern lands
among the army, and convert the retired soldier to a small planter. Such
men would very soon contrive to hire the 'contraband,' get him to
working, and make something better of him than planterocracy ever did.
At least, this is what Northern ship-captains and farmers contrive to
do, in their way, with numbers of coal-black negroes, and we have no
doubt that the soldier-planter will manage, 'somehow,' to get out a
cotton-crop, even with the aid of hired negroes! Here, again, a bounty
could be given to the wounded. Observe, we mean a bounty which shall, to
as high a degree as is possible or expedient, fully recompense a man for
losing a limb. And as we can find in Texas alone, land sufficient to
nobly reward a vast proportion of our army, it will be seen that I do
not propose any excessive or extravagant reward.

Between our municipalities and our government, _much_ should be done.
But will not this prove a two-stool system of relief, between which the
disbanded soldier would fall to the ground? Not necessarily. Let our
towns and villages do their share, pledging themselves to take _good_
care of the disabled veteran, and to find work for all until Government
shall apportion the lands of the conquered among the army.

And let all this be done _soon_. Let it forthwith form a part of the
long cried for 'policy' which is to inspire our people. If this had been
a firmly determined thing from the beginning, and if we had _dared_ to
go bravely on with it, instead of being terrified at every proposal to
_act_, by the yells and howls of the Northern secessionists, we might
have cleared Dixie out as fire clears tow. 'The enemy,' said one who had
been among them, 'have the devil in them.' If our men had something
solid to look forward to, they too, would have the devil in them, and no
mistake. They fight bravely as it is, without much inducement beyond
patriotism and a noble cause. But the 'secesh' soldier has more than
this--he has the desperation of a traitor in a bad cause, of a fanatic
and of a natural savage. It is no slur at the patriotism of our troops
to say that they would fight better for such a splendid inducement as
we hold out.

We may as well do all we can for the army--at home and away, here and
there, with all our hearts and souls. For it will come to that sooner or
later. The army is a terrible power, and its power has been, and is to
be, terribly exerted. If we would organize it betimes, prevent it from
becoming a social trouble, or rather make of it a great social support
and a _help_ instead of a future hindrance and a drag, we must be busy
at work providing for it. There it is--destined, perhaps, to rise to a
million--the flower, strength, and intellect of America, our productive
force, our brain--yes, the great majority of our mills, and looms, and
printing-presses, and all that is capital-producing, are there, in those
uniforms. There, friends, lie towns and cities, towers and palace-halls,
literature and national life--for there are the brains and arms which
make these things. Those uniforms are not to be, at least, _should not_
be, forever there. But manage meanly and weakly and stingily _now_, and
you destroy the cities and fair castles, the uniform remains in the
myriad ranks, war becomes interminable, the soldier becomes nothing but
a soldier--God avert the day!--and you will find yourself some day
telling your grand-children--if you have any, for I can inform you that
the chances of war diminish many other chances--how 'things _might_ have
been, and how finely we _might_ have conquered the enemy and had an
undivided country--God bless us!'

Will the WOMEN of America take no active part in this movement?

Many years ago, a German writer--one Kirsten--announced the
extraordinary fact, that in the Atlantic States the proportion of women
who died unmarried, or of 'old maids,' was larger than in any European
country. It is certainly true that, owing to the high standard of
expenses adopted by the children of respectable American parents--and
what American is not 'respectable'?--we are far less apt to rush into
'imprudent' marriages than is generally supposed. But what proportion of
unmarried dames will there be, if drafting continues, and the war
becomes a permanent annual subject of draft? The prospect is seriously
and simply frightful! The wreck of morality in France caused by
Napoleon's wars is notorious, for previous to that time the French
peasantry were not so debauched as they subsequently became. But this
shocking subject requires no comment.

On with the war! Drive it, push it, send it howling and hissing on like
the wild tornado, like the mad levin-brand, right into the foe! Pay the
soldier--promise--pledge--do any thing and every thing; but raise an
overwhelming force, and end the war.

Up and fight!

It is better to die now than see such disaster as awaits this country if
war become a fixed disease.

VOLUNTEER BOYS. [1750.]

'Hence with the lover who sighs o'er his wine,
Chloes and Phillises toasting;
Hence with the slave who will whimper and whine,
Of ardor and constancy boasting;
Hence with Love's joys,
Follies and noise.
The toast that _I_ give is: 'The Volunteer Boys!''

AUTHOR-BORROWING.

Bulwer, in narrating the literary career of a young Chinese, states how
one of his works was very severely handled by the Celestial critics: one
of the gravest of the charges brought against it by these poll-shaved,
wooden-shod, little-foot-worshiping, Great-Wall-building mandarins of
literature being its extreme originality! They denounced Fihoti as
having sinned the unpardonable literary sin of writing a book, a large
share of whose ideas was nowhere to be found in the writings of
Confucius.

But how strange such a charge would sound in our English ears! With us,
if between two authors the most remote resemblance of idea or expression
can be detected, straightway some ultraist stickler for
originality--some Poe--shrieks out, 'Some body must be a thief!' and
forthwith, all along the highways of reviewdom, is sent up the hue and
cry: 'Stop thief! stop thief!' For has not the law thundered from Sinai,
'Thou shalt not steal'? True, plagiarism is nowhere distinctly forbidden
by Moses; but have not critics judicially pronounced it author-_theft_?
Has not metaphor been sounded through every note of its key-board, to
strike out all that is base whereunto to liken it? Have not old Dr.
Johnson's seven-footed words--the tramp of whose heavy brogans has
echoed down the staircase of years even unto our day--declared
plagiarists from the works of buried writers 'jackals, battening on dead
men's thoughts'?

And yet, after a vast deal of such like catachresis, the orthodoxy of
plagiarism remains still in dispute. What we incorporate among the
cardinal articles of literary faith, China abjures as a dangerous
heresy. But neither our own nor the Chinese creed consists wholly of
tested bullion, but is crude ore, in which the pure gold of truth is
mingled with the dross of error. That is a golden tenet of the
tea-growers which licenses the borrowing of ideas; that 'of the earth,
earthy,' which embargoes every one unborrowed. We build upon a rock when
interdicting plagiarism; but on sand when we make that term inclose
author-theft and author-borrowing. The making direct and unacknowledged
quotations, and palming them off as the quoter's, is a very grave
literary offense. But the expression of similar or even identical
thoughts in different language, in this age of the world must be
tolerated, or else the race of authors soon become as extinct as that of
behemoths and ichthyosauri; and, indeed, far from levying any imposts
upon author-borrowing, rather ought we to vote bounties and pensions to
encourage it.

Originality of thought with men is impossible. There is in existence a
certain amount of thought, but it all belongs to God. Lord paramount
over the empire of mind as well as matter, he alone is seized, in fee
simple right, of the whole domain: provinces of which men hold, as
fiefs, by vassal tenure, subject to reversion and enfeoffment to
another. Nor can any man absolve himself from his allegiance, and extend
absolute sovereignty over broad tracts of idea-territory; for while
feudal princes vested in themselves, by conquest merely, the ownership
of kingdoms, God became suzerain over the empire of thought by virtue of
creation--for creation confers right of property. We do not, then,
originate the thoughts we call our own; or else Pantheism tells no lie
when it declares that man is God, for the differentia which
distinguishes God from man is absolute creative power. And if man be
thought-creative, he can as well as God give being unto what was
non-existent, and that, too, not mere gross, perishable matter, but
immortal soul; for thought is mind, and mind is spirit, soul, undying,
immortal. Grant that, and you divide God's empire, and enthrone the
creature in equal sovereignty beside his Maker.

All thought, then, belongs exclusively to God, and is parceled out by
him, as he chooses, among his creature feudatories. As the wind, which
bloweth where it listeth, and no one knoweth whence it cometh, save that
it is sent by God, so is thought, as it blows through our minds. Over
birds, flying at liberty through the free air, boys often advance claims
of ownership more specific than are easily derived from the general
dominion God gave man over the beasts of the field and the birds of the
air; yet, 'All those birds are mine!' exclaims a youngster in
roundabout, with just as much reason as any man can claim, as
exclusively his own, the thoughts which are ever winging their way
through the firmament of mind.

But considered apart from the relation we sustain to God, none of us are
original with respect to our fellow-men. Few, indeed, are the ideas we
derive by direct grant, or through nature, from our liege lord; but far
the greater share, by hooks or personal contact, we gather through our
fellow-men. Consciously, unconsciously, we all teach--we all learn from,
one another. Association does far more toward forming mind than natural
endowments. As not alone the soil whence it springs makes the oak, but
surrounding elements contribute. Seclude a human mind entirely from
hooks and men, and you may have a man with no ideas borrowed from his
fellows. Such a one, in Germany, once grew up from childhood to manhood
in close imprisonment, and poor Kasper Hauser proved--an idiot. It can
hardly be necessary to suggest the well-known fact, that the greatest
readers of men and books always possess the greatest minds. Such are,
besides, of the greatest service to mankind. For since God has so formed
us that we love to give as well as take, a great independent mind,
complete in itself and incapable of receiving from others, must always
stand somewhat apart from men; and even a great heart, when
conjoined--as it seldom is--with a great head, is rarely able to
drawbridge over the wide moat which intrenches it in solitary
loneliness. Originality ever links with it something of
uncongeniality--a feeling somewhat akin to the egotism of that one who,
when asked why he talked so much to himself, replied--for two reasons:
the one, that he liked to talk to a sensible man; the other, that he
liked to hear a sensible man talk. Divorcing itself from
fellow-sympathies, it broods over its own perfections, till, like
Narcissus, it falls in love with itself. And so, a highly original man
can rarely ever be a highly popular man or author. By the very
super-abundance of his excellencies, his usefulness is destroyed; just
as Tarpeia sank, buried beneath the presents of the Sabine soldiery. A
Man once appeared on earth, of perfect originality; and in him, to an
unbounded intellect was added boundless moral power. But men received
him not. They rejected his teachings; they smote him; they crucified
him.

But though the right of eminent domain over ideas does and should inhere
in one superior to us, far different is the case with words. These
'incarnations of thought' are of man's device, and therefore his; and
style--the peculiar manner in which one uses words to express ideas--is
individually personal. Indeed, style has been defined the man himself; a
definition, so far as he is recognized only as a revealer of thought,
substantially correct. In an idea word-embodied, the embodier, then,
possesses with God concurrent ownership. The idea itself may be
borrowed, or it may be his so far as discovery gives title; but the
words, in their arrangement, are absolutely his. All ideas are like
mathematical truths: eternal and unchangeable in their essence, and
originate in nature; words like figures, of a fixed value, but of human
invention; and sentences are formulae, embodying oftentimes the same
essential truth, but in shapes as various as their paternity. Words, in
sentences, should then be inviolate to their author.

Nor is this to value words above ideas--the flesh above the spirit of
which it is but the incarnation. It is not the intrinsic value of each
that we here regard, but the value of the ownership one has in each.
'Deacon Giles and I,' said a poor man, 'own more cows than any five
other men in the county.' 'How many does Deacon Giles own?' asked a
bystander. 'Nineteen.' 'And how many do you?' 'One.' And that one cow,
which that poor man owned, was worth more to _him_ than the nineteen
which were Deacon Giles's. So, when you have determined whose the style
is which enfolds a thought, whose the thought is, is as little worth
dispute as, after its wrappage of corn has been shelled off, the cob's
ownership is worth a quarrel.

As thoughts bodied in words uttered make up conversation, thought
incarnate in words written constitutes literature. The gross sum of
thought with which God has seen to dower the human mind, though vast, is
finite, and may be exhausted. Indeed, we are told this had been already
done so long ago as times whereof Holy Writ takes cognizance. Since that
time, then, men have been echoing and reechoing the same old ideas. And
though words, too, are finite, their permutations are infinite. What
Himalayan piles of paper, river-coursed by Danubes and Niagaras of ink,
hath the 'itch of writing' aggregated! And yet, Ganganelli says that
every thing that man has ever written might be contained within six
thousand folio volumes, if filled with only original matter. But how
books lie heaped on one another, weighing down those under, weighed down
by those above them; each crushed and crushing; their thoughts, like
bones of skeletons corded in convent vault, mingled in confusion--like
those which Hawthorne tells us Miriam saw in the burial-cellar of the
Capuchin friars in Rome, where, when a dead brother had lain buried an
allotted period, his remains, removed from earth to make room for a
successor, were piled with those of others who had died before him.

It is said Aurora once sought and gained from Jove the boon of
immortality for one she loved; but forgetting to request also perpetual
youth, Tithonus gradually grew old, his thin locks whitened, his wasting
frame dwindled to a shadow, and his feeble voice thinned down till it
became inaudible. And just so ideas, although immortal, were it not for
author-borrowers, through age grown obsolete, might virtually perish.
But by and by, just as some precious thought is being lost unto the
world, let there come some Medea, by whose potent sorcery that old and
withered idea receives new life-blood through its shrunken veins, and it
starts to life again with recreated vigor--another AEson, with the bloom
of youth upon him. Besides in this way playing the physician to save old
ideas from a burial alive, the author-borrower often delivers many a
prolific mother-thought of a whole family of children--as a prism from
out a parent ray of colorless light brings all the bright colors of the
spectrum, which, from red to violet, were all waiting there only for its
assistance to leap into existence; or sometimes he plays the parson,
wedlocking thoughts from whose union issue new; as from yellow wedded to
red springs orange, a new, a secondary life; or enacts, maybe, the
brood-hen's substitute. Many a thought is a Leda egg, imprisoning twin
life-principles, which,, incubated in the eccaleobion brain of an
author-borrower, have blessed the world; but without such a
foster-parent, in some neglected nest staled and addled, had never burst
the shell.

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