It opens with quite a flourish, trying to decorate the story and hero as the German Hoffman did long ago, but though the whole of the first part is a spun-out translation of the German critic’s description, it is so mingled with his own crude, half-educated thoughts, as to require some little skill in separating Hoffman from Dwight. He has made an attempt to improve upon the German, and we can not say we admire the Boston imitation. Judge for yourself by the following comparison:
DWIGHT.
The true conception of Mozart’s Don Giovanni is that of a gentleman, to say the least, and more than that, a man of genius: a being naturally full of glorious passion, large sympathies and irrepressible energies, noble in mind, in person and in fortune; a large, imposing, generous, fascinating creature. He is such as we all are—“only more so,” to borrow an expressive vulgarism. He is a sort of ideal impersonation of two qualities or springs of character, raised as it were to the highest power projected into supernatural dimensions—which is only the poet’s and musician’s way of truly recognizing the element of infinity in every passion of the human soul, since not one ever finds its perfect satisfaction.
HOFFMAN.
Nature had provided for Don Giovanni, one of her dearest children, all that could elevate a man above the crowd which is condemned to be, to do, and to suffer: she had lavished on him the gifts which bid the human nature approximate to the divine. She had destined him to shine, to conquer and to rule. She had animated with a splendid organization that vigorous and accomplished frame: had inspired that breast with a celestial spark: had given to him a soul of deep feeling, quick and penetrating intelligence.
We think Hoffman’s description of Don Giovanni a little exaggerated, but the Boston imitation is what may be called a “free translation,” very free. All that duality business—“that ideal impersonation of two qualities or springs of character,” is decidedly an attempt to amplify, if not to improve the German criticism, and is in the usual moral-defying style of the no-principle school of Harbinger and Phalanx writers. In olden times our grand-parents, when they saw any thing particularly broad or free in expression or action, were apt to say, with a proper shrug of the shoulders, that it was “very French.” At the present day, when we see any thing questionable in morals or opinions we exclaim, “transcendental, mock German, and, very Boston;” and thus we say of this attempt of Mr. Dwight’s to idealize the very sensual, commonplace libertine of the opera.
We will now give another comparison.
DWIGHT.
Excessive love of pleasure, helped by a rare magnetism of character, and provoked by the suppressive moralism of the times, have engendered in him a reckless, roving, unsatiable appetite, which intrigue excites and disappoints until the very passion in which so many souls are first taught the feeling of the infinite becomes a fiend in his breast, and drives him to a devilish love of power that exults over woman’s ruin, or rather, that does not mind how many hearts and homes fall victims to his unqualified assertion of the every where rejected and snubbed faith in Passion.