HALLORAN THE PEDLAR.
HALLORAN THE PEDLAR.[ 26]
"It grieves me," said an eminent poet once to me, "it grieves and humbles me to reflect how much our moral nature is in the power of circumstances. Our best faculties would remain unknown even to ourselves did not the influences of external excitement call them forth like animalculæ, which lie torpid till awakened into life by the transient sunbeam."
This is generally true. How many walk through the beaten paths of every-day life, who but for the novelist's page would never weep or wonder; and who would know nothing of the passions but as they are represented in some tragedy or stage piece? not that they are incapable of high resolve and energy; but because the finer qualities have never been called forth by imperious circumstances; for while the wheels of existence roll smoothly along, the soul will continue to slumber in her vehicle like a lazy traveller. But for the French revolution, how many hundreds—thousands—whose courage, fortitude, and devotedness have sanctified their names, would have frittered away a frivolous, useless, or vicious life in the saloons of Paris! We have heard of death in its most revolting forms braved by delicate females, who would have screamed at the sight of the most insignificant reptile or insect; and men cheerfully toiling at mechanic trades for bread, who had lounged away the best years of their lives at the toilettes of their mistresses. We know not of what we are capable till the trial comes;—till it comes, perhaps, in a form which makes the strong man quail, and turns the gentler woman into a heroine.
The power of outward circumstances suddenly to awaken dormant faculties—the extraordinary influence which the mere instinct of self-preservation can exert over the mind, and the triumph of mind thus excited over physical weakness, were never more truly exemplified than in the story of Halloran the Pedlar.