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

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. "This Holy Alliance will soon appear unholy to every nation in Europe. I despised Napoleon in the plenitude of his power no less than others despise him in the solitude of his exile: I thought him