As we are not writing his memoir, we refer such of our readers as may be curious to inquire further into the subject to the pamphlet just cited, and to the chapter headed “Garrison,” in the work on America by the same writer. To one extraordinary feature of his character, however, we cannot forbear adverting. He belongs to a society instituted for the apparently negative purpose of non-resistance, and is therefore the safest of all antagonists. Buffet as you list the head and sides of W. L. Garrison, and you receive no buffet in return. That this is owing to no deficiency of personal courage, admits of demonstration. Neither the prison into which he was cast when a mere lad in one state, the price set on his head in another, nor the tar-kettle to which he would on one occasion have been dragged but for a stout arm that came to his rescue, has been able to make Garrison swerve from what he considers to be his line of duty. Another cause of this disposition to passive endurance must be sought, and it is easily found: he is in love—deeply in love with all mankind. His principle is to “resist not evil;” and he acts upon it to the fullest extent. In fact, he appears to be several centuries in advance of his time, and to live in a millennium of his own creating.
We shall only add, that the effect which this remarkable man produced on the minds of those who companied with him while in Dublin, was of a very peculiar nature. Among these were persons of various sects and parties, and of all varieties of temperament, but nearly all seemed to concur in their estimate of his character. Though many seemed to think that he carried out the great principle of love to an unnecessary extent, none seemed able to gainsay his reasonings. Here and there tears were seen to start, not called forth by any sublime sentiment or tender emotion to which he had given words at the moment, but educed as it were by the abstract contemplation of the image of intense virtue which he represented; and most agreed in the opinion, that of all individuals with whom they had ever been acquainted, he was the one of whom it could be with most justice asserted, that none could hold much intercourse with him without becoming better. His Dublin host sailed to Liverpool on Monday evening for the mere purpose of enjoying his company for three hours more, which was all the arrangements the Boston steamer would permit, in which he was to leave Liverpool on Tuesday.
It would be an act of great injustice to close this article without making some mention of Garrison’s congenial friend and companion Nathaniel Peabody Rogers of Plymouth, in New Hampshire, also the editor and proprietor of a newspaper, of whom, however, we shall only say, that if (as the phrase goes) anything happened to W. L. Garrison, he is the man who would be ready to occupy his place in the admiration and execration of America.
G. D.
Time.—Time is the most undefinable yet most paradoxical of things: the past is gone, the future is not come, and the present becomes the past even while we attempt to define it, and, like the flash of the lightning, at once exists and expires. Time is the measure of all things, but is itself immeasurable, and the grand discloser of all things, but is itself undisclosed. Like space, it is incomprehensible, because it has no limit, and it would be still more so, if it had. It is more in its source than the Nile, and its termination, than the Niger; and advances like the slowest tide, but retreats like the swiftest torrent. It gives wings of lightning to pleasure, but feet of lead to pain, and lends expectation a curb, but enjoyment a spur. It robs beauty of her charms, to bestow them on her picture, and builds a monument to merit, but denies it a house; it is the transient and deceitful flatterer of falsehood, but the tried and final friend of truth. Time is the most subtle, yet the most insatiable of depredators, and by appearing to take nothing, is permitted to take all, nor can it be satisfied until it has stolen the world from us, and us from the world. It constantly flies, yet overcomes all things by flight; and although it is the present ally, it will be the future conqueror of death. Time, the cradle of hope, but the grave of ambition, is the stern corrector of fools, but the salutary counsellor of the wise, bringing all they dread to the one, and all they desire to the other; like Cassandra, it warns us with a voice that even the sages discredit too long, and the silliest believe too late. Wisdom walks before it, opportunity with it, and repentance behind it; he that has made it his friend, will have little to fear from his enemies; but he that has made it his enemy, will have little to hope from his friends.—Burn’s Youthful Piety.
Diffidence.—A man gets along faster with a sensible married woman in hours than with a young girl in whole days. It is next to impossible to make them talk, or to reach them. They are like a green walnut: there are half a dozen outer coats to be pulled off, one by one and slowly, before you reach the kernel of their characters.
APOLOGUES AND FABLES,
IN PROSE AND VERSE, FROM THE GERMAN AND OTHER LANGUAGES.
No. IV.—THE EAGLE AND THE DOVE.
A TRANSLATION FROM GOETHE.
Joyous with youth, an Eagle spread his pinions
One sunny summer day,