The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 | Page 6

the laws and is able to
correct them, obeys them peaceably. It is he who looks on the
ambitious both as weak and fraudulent. It is he who hath no disposition
or occasion for any kind of conceit, no reason for being or for
appearing different from what he is. It is he who can call together the
most select company when it pleases him." And Petrarca says that
"Time the Sovran is first to discover the truly great." Yet, though we
put faith in the justice of posterity, even Time plays many a one false
through misplaced favoritism. "They, O Timotheus," exclaims the
imaginary Lucian, "who survive the wreck of ages, are by no means, as
a body, most worthy of our admiration. It is in these wrecks as in those
at sea,--the best things are not always saved. Hencoops and empty
barrels bob upon the surface, under a serene and smiling sky, when the
graven or depicted images of the gods are scattered on invisible rocks,
and when those who most resembled them in knowledge and
beneficence are devoured by cold monsters below." We claim, however,
that Lucian's theory is good for this world only, as we believe that soul,
though it may be temporarily wrecked, speeds on to the inevitable
justice of eternity. And can we, now that the fever of military glory is
upon us, remember that, great as may be the man who conquers his
country's enemies upon the battle-field, he is far greater who conquers
the prejudices of his age and instils into groping masses the doctrines of
a more glorious civilization?
"For civilisation perfected Is fully developed Christianity."
Every generation has two or three such men; no age has enough moral
courage to give birth to more. They live under protest,--thought alone is
free,--and when these men, fifty years in advance of their times,
proclaim God's truth with the enthusiasm begotten of religion,
grub-worms that rule the great status quo sting the prophets with all the
virus of their nature, and render each step forward as difficult as was
once the passage of the Simplon. There is no stumbling-block like that
of ignorance, and he who would remove it must wear the holy crown of
thorns. We speak of the horrors of the Inquisition as things of the past.
Are we so sure of this? Has not prejudice invented most exquisite

tortures for reformers of all ages? America has her sins to answer for in
this respect.
"Because ye prosper in God's name, With a claim. To honor in the old
world's sight, Yet do the fiend's work perfectly In strangling
martyrs,--for this lie This is the curse."
On the stubbornness of Status Quo none have written better than
Landor. "Unbendingness, in the moral as in the vegetable world, is an
indication as frequently of unsoundness as of strength. Indeed, wise
men, kings as well as others, have been free from it. Stiff necks are
diseased ones."
It was impossible to be in Landor's society a half-hour and not reap
advantage. His great learning, varied information, extensive
acquaintance with the world's celebrities, ready wit, and even readier
repartee, rendered his conversation wonderfully entertaining. He would
narrate anecdote after anecdote with surprising accuracy, being
possessed of a singularly retentive memory, that could refer to a
catalogue of notables far longer than Don Giovanni's picture-gallery of
conquests. Names, it is true, he was frequently unable to recall, and
supplied their place with a "God bless my soul, I forget everything";
but facts were indelibly stamped upon his mind. He referred back to the
year one with as much facility as a person of the rising generation
invokes the shade of some deed dead a few years. I looked with wonder
upon a person who remembered Napoleon Bonaparte as a slender
young man, and listened with delight to a voice from so dim a past. "I
was in Paris," said Landor one day, "at the time that Bonaparte made
his entrance as First Consul. I was standing within a few feet of him
when he passed, and had a capital good look at him. He was
exceedingly handsome then, with a rich olive complexion and oval face,
youthful as a girl's. Near him rode Murat, mounted upon a gold-clad
charger,--and very handsome he was too, but coxcombical."
Like the rest of human kind, Landor had his prejudices,--they were very
many. Foremost among them was an antipathy to the Bonaparte family.
It is not necessary to have known him personally to be aware of his
detestation of the first Napoleon, as in the conversation between

himself, an English and a Florentine visitor, he gives expression to a
generous indignation, which may well be inserted here, as it contains
the pith of what Landor repeated in many a social talk.