My next book, published by Bentley in 1841, is in some sort a psychological curiosity,—its title being "An Author's Mind, the Book of Title-pages;" and when I add that it contains in succession sketches of thirty-four new brain-children, all struggling together for exit from my occiput, it may be imagined how impelled I was to write them all down (fixt, however briefly, in black and white) in order to get rid of them. The book is printed as "edited" by me; whereas I wrote every word of it, but had not then the courage to say so, as certain things therein might well have offended some folks, and I did not wish that. I think I will give here a bit of the prefatory "Ramble," to show how the emptying out of my thought-box must have been a most wholesome, a most necessary relief:—
"Now, reader, one little preliminary parley with you about myself. Here beginneth the trouble of authorship, but it is a trouble causing ease; ease from thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, which never cease to make one's head ache till they are fixed on paper; ease from dreams by night and reveries by day (thronging up in crowds behind, like Deucalion's children, or a serried host in front, like Jason's instant army), harassing the brain, and struggling for birth, a separate existence, a definite life,—ease, in a cessation of that continuous internal hum of aerial forget-me-nots, clamouring to be recorded. O happy unimaginable vacancy of mind, to whistle as you walk for want of thought! O mental holiday, now as impossible to me as to take a true schoolboy's interest in rounders and prisoner's base! An author's mind,—and remember always, friend, I write in character, so judge not as egotistic vanity merely the well playing of my rôle,—such a mind is not a sheet of smooth wax, but a magic stone indented with fluttering inscriptions,—no empty tenement, but a barn stored to bursting—it is a painful pressure, constraining to write for comfort's sake,—an appetite craving to be satisfied, as well as a power to be exerted,—an impetus that longs to get away, rather than a dormant dynamic—thrice have I (let me confess it) poured forth the alleviating volume as an author, a real author, real, because, for very peace of mind, involuntary,—but still the vessel fills,—still the indigenous crop springs up, choking a better harvest, seeds of foreign growth,—still these Lernæan necks sprout again, claiming with many mouths to explain, amuse, suggest, and controvert, to publish invention, and proscribe error. Truly it were enviable to be less apprehensive, less retentive,—to be fitted with a colander-mind, like that penal cask which forty-nine Danaïdes might not keep from leaking; to be, sometimes at least, suffered for a holiday to ramble brainless in the paradise of fools. Memory, imagination, zeal, perceptions of men and things, equally with rank and riches, have often cost their full price, as many mad have known; they take too much out of a man, fret, wear, worry him,—to be irritable is the conditional tax laid of old upon an author's intellect; the crowd of internal imagery makes him hasty, quick, nervous, as a haunted, hunted man—minds of coarser web heed not how small a thorn rends one of so delicate a texture,—they cannot estimate the wish that a duller sword were in a tougher scabbard,—the river, not content with channel and restraining banks, overflows perpetually,—the extortionate exacting armies of the ideal and the causal persecute my spirit, and I would make a patriot stand at once to vanquish the invaders of my peace. I write these things only to be quit of them, and not to let the crowd increase,—I have conceived a plan to destroy them all, as Jehu and Elijah with the priests of Baal; I feel Malthusian among my mental nurslings; a dire resolve has filled me to effect a premature destruction of the literary populace superfætating in my brain,—plays, novels, essays, tales, homilies, and rhythmicals; for ethics and poetics, politics and rhetorics, will I display no more mercy than sundry commentators of maltreated Aristotle. I will exhibit them in their state chaotic,—I will addle the eggs, and the chicken shall not chirp,—I will reveal, and secrets shall not waste me; I will write, and thoughts shall not batten on me."
The whole volume, as before-mentioned, is an epitome or quintessence of more than thirty works,—perhaps the best being "The Prior of Marrick," a story of idolatry; "Anti-Xurion," a crusade against razors; and "The Author's Tribunal," an oration; but I confess, not having looked at the book since my hair was black (and now it is snow-white), and considering that I wrote it forty-five years ago, I am surprised to find how well worth reading is my old Author's Mind. It may some day attain a resurrection: possibly even, in more than the skeleton form of its present appearance, muscles and skin being added, in a detailed filling up and finishing of these mere sketches, if only time and opportunity were given to me. But I much fear at my time of life that my Tragedy of Nero must remain unwritten, as also my Novel of Charlotte Clopton, and that thrilling Handbook of the Marvellous; not to mention my abortive Epic of Home, and sundry essays, satires, and other lucubrations which, alas! may now be considered addled eggs. In a last word, I somewhat vaingloriously claim for authorship, as thus:—
The Cathedral Mind.
"Temple of truths most eloquently spoken,
Shrine of sweet thoughts veil'd round with words of power,
The Author's Mind in all its hallowed riches
Stands a Cathedral; full of precious things—
Tastefully built in harmonies unbroken,
Cloister and aisle, dark crypt and aery tower;
Long-treasured relics in the fretted niches
And secret stores, and heaped-up offerings,
Art's noblest wealth with Nature's fruit and flower.
Paintings and Sculpture, Summer's best, and Spring's,
Its plenitude of pride and praise betoken;
An ever-burning lamp shines in its soul;
Deep music all around enchantment flings;
And God's great Presence consecrates the whole!"
Probabilities.
In this our day, Agnosticism, if not avowed Atheism, seems to be making great way, and destroying the happiness of thousands. It may be a truth, though partly an unpleasant one, that "he has no faith who never had a doubt," even as "he has no hope who never had a fear." Well, in my short day and in my own small way I seem to have been through everything, and there was a time when I was much worried with uninvited difficulties and involuntary unbeliefs. Such troublesome thoughts seemed to come to me without my wish or will,—and stayed too long with me for my peace: however, I searched them out and fought them down, and cleared my brain of such poisonous cobwebs by writing my "Probabilities, an Aid to Faith;" a small treatise on the antecedent likelihood of everything that has happened, which did me great good while composing it, and has (to my happy knowledge from many grateful letters) enlightened and comforted hundreds of unwilling misbelievers. The book, after four editions, has now long been out of print; however, certainly I still wish it was in the hands of modern sceptics for their good. The scheme of the treatise is briefly this: I begin by showing the antecedent probability of the being of a God, then of His attributes, and by inference from His probable benevolence, of His becoming a Creator: then that the created being inferior to His perfection might fall, in which event His benevolence would find a remedy. But what remedy? That Himself should pay the penalty, and effect a full redemption. How? By becoming a creature, and so lifting up the race to Himself through so generous a condescension. I show that it was antecedently probable that the Divinity should come in humble form, not to paralyse our reason by outward glories,—that He might even die as a seeming malefactor; this was the guess of Socrates: and that for the trial of our faith there are likely to be permitted all manner of difficulties and mysteries for us to gain personal strength by combating and living them down. Many other topics are touched in this suggestive little treatise, whereanent a few critiques are available; as thus, "The author has done good service to religion by this publication: it will shake the doubts of the sceptical, strengthen the trust of the wavering, and delight the faith of the confirmed. As its character becomes known, it will deservedly fill a high place in the estimation of the Christian world."—Britannia. And similarly of other English journals, while the Americans were equally favourable. Take this characteristic instance, one of many: the Brooklyn Eagle maintains that "the author is one of the rare men of the age; he turns up thoughts as with a plough on the sward of monotonous usage." And Hunt's Magazine, New York, commends "this reasoning with the sceptical, showing that if they consider probabilities simply, then all the great doctrines of our faith might reasonably be expected."
An extract from the book itself, as out of print, may be acceptable, the more so that it takes a new and true view (as I apprehend) of Job and his restored prosperity:—