As we sat looking at a conjurer or necromancer performing his tricks the other evening, at which were some hundreds of other lookers-on, we fell to meditate upon the influence which any thing that is at all mysterious has upon the human mind. "To him," says Dr. Chatfield, "who has been sated, and perhaps disappointed by the actual and the intelligible, there is an indefinable charm in the unattainable and inscrutable." And it is so. Infants stretch out their hands for the moon; children delight in puzzles and riddles, even when they can not discover their solution; and "children of a larger growth" desire, oftentimes, no better employment than to follow their example. Look at the fanaticism engendered by Rev. Edward Irving's "Unknown Tongues; at which," says the authority we have quoted, "we need not wonder, when we remember the confession of the pious Baxter, that in order to awaken an interest in his congregation, he made it a rule, in every sermon, to say something above their capacity." There are not wanting ministers nowadays who follow the Baxterian practice, with the difference only, that what they sometimes preach is as much above their own comprehension as that of their audience.
Is it not a "little curious" that Harriet Martineau, an old maid, a "benign cerulean of the second sex," as Lord Byron calls her class, who "never loved," or if she did, yet who, if published accounts are true, shrunk from the nuptial bonds, and left her affianced lord in the lurch at the last moment—is it not a little curious, we say, that such a woman, should have written so exquisite a picture of true love as that which ensues? We once heard a distinguished American author remark, sitting by his "Dutchman's Fireside," that he kept for days out of the literary lady-traveler's way when she was trying to meet him. "There she was," said he, "going about with that long India-rubber ear-trumpet of hers, taking in every thing that was offered to it, just like an elephant going round with his trunk, drawing in here an apple, there a piece of cake, now a handful of nuts, and next, perhaps, a chew of tobacco. I wasn't going to contribute to her trunk, nor to the lining any others, when she had got home and printed her notes!" If the authoress, however, had met this unwilling host, and had told this "tale of love," doubtless he would have listened in "mute admiration." But we are forgetting the passage: "There is no other such crisis in human life as the crisis of Love. The philosopher may experience uncontrollable agitation in verifying his principle of balancing systems of worlds, feeling perhaps as if he actually saw the creative hand in the act of sending the planets forth on their everlasting way; but he knows at such a moment no emotions so divine as those of the spirit becoming conscious that it is beloved; be it the peasant-girl in the meadow, or the daughter of the sage, or the artisan beside his loom, or the man of letters musing by his fire-side. The warrior about to strike the decisive blow for the liberties of a nation is not in a state of such lofty resolution as those who, by joining hearts, are laying their joint hands on the whole wide realm of futurity for their own. The statesman, in the moment of success, is not conscious of so holy and so intimate a thankfulness as they who are aware that their redemption has come in the presence of a new and sovereign affection. And these are many: they are in all corners of every land. The statesman is the leader of a nation; the warrior is the grace of an age; the philosopher is the birth of a thousand years; but the Lover—where is he not? Wherever parents look round upon their children, there he has been: wherever children are at play together there he soon will be; wherever there are roofs under which men dwell, wherever there is an atmosphere vibrating with human voices, there is the lover, and there is his lofty worship going on—unspeakable, perchance, but revealed in the brightness of the eye, the majesty of the presence, and the high temper of the discourse. Men have been ungrateful and perverse; they have done what they could to counteract it, to debate this most heavenly influence of their life; but the laws of their Maker are too strong, the benignity of their Father is too patient and fervent, for their opposition to withstand; and true love continues, and will continue, to send up its homage amidst the meditations of every eventide, and the busy hum of noon, and the song of the morning stars."
Some lively French writer, whose name has quite escaped us, once wrote a vivid sketch, entitled, "L'Homme Rouge," or "The Red Man." There was an under-plot of sentiment in the story, we well remember, but the great feature of the romance was, that whenever there was a fire to happen in any part of Paris, whether by accident or design, there suddenly appeared "L'Homme Rouge;" sometimes in the midst of a party of revelers at a masked-ball; sometimes surprising nuns at their devotions, and not unfrequently where crime was hatching, or unnatural orgies making night hideous. But he was a good, benevolent deity, and always came to warn against or to suppress conflagration. Such, it would appear, and without fable, hereafter, will be the man who can command the great "Fire-Annihilator," which is making such a sensation, and proving so unerringly effective in England. A man, bearing one of these easily-carried machines, enters his blazing domicil, all a-glow with a bright flame, which is curling its forked tongues around every thing which resists its progress, and touching a spring, a cloud of smoke-like vapor issues forth, before which the flame flickers, grows pale, and at once fades entirely out, and the conflagration is stopped. It has been tested in so many instances, that its success is now considered wholly infallible. A company for the sale of the "Annihilator" has been formed in this country, the "central bureau" of which is in New York, the president being Hon. Elisha Whittlesey, of the American Congress. The age of rail-roads, magnetic telegraphs, and fire-exterminators, will signalize this era as one of the most remarkable in the world's history.
Seneca complains that the ancients had compelled him to borrow from them what they would have taken from him, had he been lucky enough to have preceded them! "Every one of my writings," says Goethe, in the same candid spirit, "has been furnished to me by a thousand different persons, a thousand different things: the learned and the ignorant, the wise and the foolish, infancy and old age have come in turn, generally without having the least suspicion of it, to bring me the offering of their thoughts, their faculties, their experience. Often have they sowed the harvest I have reaped. My works are an aggregation of human beings, taken from the whole of nature." It is in the power of any writer, says a commentator upon this passage, to be original, by deserting nature, and seeking the quaint and the fantastical. "When I was a young man," says Goldsmith, "being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions; but I soon gave this over, for I found that generally what was new was false."
Dean Swift's remark at the close of a charity-sermon, from the text "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord," is well known—("If you like the security, down with your dust!") But the two following eccentricities of speech, which are attributed to him, we never saw before: "My brethren," said he, on one occasion, "there are three sorts of pride—pride of birth, of riches, and of talents. I shall not now speak of the latter, none of you being addicted or liable to that abominable vice!" "I fear," said he, on another occasion, to his flock, "I fear, when I explained to you, in my last charity-sermon, that philanthropy was the love of our species, you must have misunderstood me to say specie, which may account for the smallness of the collection. You will prove, I hope, by your present contributions, that you are no longer laboring under the same mistake!" A surer way of securing a good collection was recently adopted by a benevolent lecture-giver in a sister city. The audience were admitted free; but when the lecture was closed, no one was permitted to pass out until he or she had disbursed twenty-five cents!