Go, kneel by the marble, if marble it seem, And love, with its torch, will illumine your dream. 5. Lost thoughts of your youth will that statue renew; 6. Italy! Italy! never again May the minstrel revisit thy mountain and plain, Thy present is beautiful; great was thy past; EXERCISE LXXXIII. ADVERSITY, WITH INTERJECTIONS BY THE READER. ROBERT CHAMBERS. 1. Adversity!-daughter of Jove-relentless power-tamer of the human breast--companion and nurse of virtue—such are the terms in which a philosophical poet has spoken of it. In similar language have almost all the poets and philosophers of all ages eulogized adversity; without which, some of them say, it is impossible for any one to know what sterling qualities he may possess, or what great things he may accomplish. [A very good thing for all people besides ourselves, I suppose.] To see a brave man, says Seneca, struggling against evil fortune "Still buoyant 'midst the waves of adverse fate,” is the finest sight the world can show. The gods might be expected to look down with satisfaction on such a spectacle. [All very true, perhaps; but this is apparently a drama which would expire for want of actors, if men had their own choice.] 2. The corrupting tendency of prosperity has always been fully acknowledged. Men are then apt to be extremely puffed up and forgetful of themselves. They begin to look on their fellow-creatures as beings of an inferior nature, whom they are at liberty to use for their own purposes. Old friends are forgotten; nay, even those who may have conferred benefits upon them in their less fortunate days. Often, in the wantonness of prosperity, men will trample the most sacred principles under foot. 3. In short, it has ever been regarded as a most dangerous thing for a frail mortal to be exposed to the demoralizing influences which attend a large measure of the good things of this life. [All nonsense. I know many good fellows who have feathered their nests by railway speculations. They never used to give dinners, because they said they could not afford it. Now, they ask you every fortnight. Forget old friends! They never could remember them till now. And as for trampling sacred principles under foot-why, you will see their names opposite good sums in all the charity books that go about,-fellows that never gave a half-penny to a beggar before. I would like to be exposed to similar dangerthat I know.] 4. The enervating effect of prosperity is, perhaps, its most remarkable result. Under this sickly influence all the hardy virtues languish and die. Adversity, on the contrary, develops the native vigor of human character. [Well, I know that Jasper Thoroughpace was a clever, active fellow waile things were going well with him; but now that he is in the background, one would think that he had lost all spirit, and had resolved to allow the world to take its own course with him-like a Turk. I called upon him the other morning, and showed him how he might make thirty pounds in a couple of days, if he would only look sharp. But he told me it was of no use--he had not heart to try any thing.] 5. Yield not to evils, said the Sybil, but go the more daringly against them. You vanquish Fortune by bearing her spite with fortitude. How nobly did the ancients practice these admirable maxims of theirs, and what a noble example have they thus left to us! [A set of ninnies, that fell on their swords whenever any thing went wrong. No, no, my friend; depend on it, it's all talk about the invigorating effect of adversity. As well tell me that crocuses thrive because of the snow they grow among, when we know it is only by reason of such sunshine as there is, at that season, that they can get up their heads at all.] 6. Perhaps, however, the most blessed result of adversity is in its softening effects upon our nature. From my own, I learn to melt at others' woe, saith the poet, not more beautifully than truly. Amidst the luxuries and blandishments which prosperity brings us, we unavoidably become selfish and egotistical. The spirit grows upon us, till we become thoroughly hardened. But let us experience the frowns of adversity, and we feel at once that we are men. Our vexa tions and griefs teach us what human life really is to the great bulk of our fellow-creatures, and we then begin to open our ears to the cry of the poor and the anguish-laden. 7. Thus, it has happened to many a man to be converted into humanity by adversity, who would otherwise have gone on to the close of life in impenetrable selfishness selfishness all the greater, that he was totally unconscious of there being any such thing about him. [Now, such nonsense is here! Why, the very contrary is the case. There is Mrs. Craik, the nicest creature in the world as long as her husband was in easy circumstances,-felt for every body, and helped all she could,‚—never seemed to have a selfish thought. But now that Craik has fallen back so much, why, she is no longer endurable. 8. Last time I went to see her, she talked of nothing but the slights she meets with from old acquaintances, and what she suffers from her husband's bad temper. She is now bitter at every thing. Call you this egotism or not? And she really is a good creature, too. It is only that she has so much to annoy her own mind, that she can think of nothing else, much less feel for any other body's troubles. And is this an uncommon case? Have you never heard of people being soured by misfortune, getting spited at the world, when it goes against them, and so forth? Men are hardened, my dear friend, not by prosperity, but by adversity.] 9. While thus serviceable in disciplining the feelings, adversity has a scarcely less important power as an instructor of the judgment. In prosperity, we see every thing through a false medium. The world smiles upon us, because fortune does. We never learn the real thoughts of those around us. Men have an interest in deceiving us, and we can hardly miss being deceived accordingly. But, while abiding the storms of adversity, we have all things presented to us in the unflattering reality. 10. We see the selfishness, if not heartlessness, of men, and how little even genuine merit affects them, if they do not think they can make something by it. We learn to avoid taking things at their first fair seeming; to pause, look narrowly, and approve late. We learn to cope with the most astute in all worldly matters. From these considerations it is, that the diplomas of those reared in the school of adversity, have ever borne so much higher a value than those of persons brought up in pleasanter academies. 11. Indeed, as an English poet has well expressed it: "So many great illustrious spirits have conversed with Woe, and been taught in her school, as are enough to consecrate distress, and make ambition wish for the frown rather than the smile of Fortune." [Stuff, stuff-nothing but stuff! Adver- • sity only twists people's judgments. In that school they do not see things in their true character, but in a very false one. 12. Every thing appears harsh and disagreeable to the man zuffering adversity. If a merchant in struggling circumstances, and refused a little credit, he thinks there is no faith in human probity, and goes home as sulky as a bear. If a commander who has failed in an enterprise, he conceives every allusion in his presence to military failures, a symptom of the ungenerous spirit of detraction in his fellow-creatures, and is likely to fall into a dueling business every day of his life. 13. Who has the justest opinion of critics-the author whose works get a fair share of the praise which they deserve, or he who, writing bad books, is continually cut up in the reviews? Oh, my friend, look a little among those who are called the suffering classes, and say, if actual observation makes good these dreams of yours about the stern schoolmistress. 14. Tell us, if you there find juster views of life and its complicated interests, than among the quiet, well-off people of the middle ranks, or even those who have suffered a little too much of prosperity. Tell us whether demagogues find their best subjects among those who have empty, or those who have full stomachs. But I have lost all patience with this twattle about the beauties of adversity, and can listen to no more of it.] Exit reader in a huff, after throwing the book from him with contempt. erature. 15. Gentle readers of my own, this is a representation of the spirit of ancient writers in contrast with that of modern readers. Adversity is one of the respectabilities of past litIt was the fashion for twenty centuries to expatiate upon the useful effects it had upon human character, and no one ever thought of challenging this philosophy, although then, perhaps, Adversity's own patients were as uneasy under her surgery as now. 16. But it is no longer possible to pass off plausible commonplaces in this way. Men make no allowance for the solemnities of authorcraft. They look at things in a practical light only, and, if they find literature attempting to impose any thing upon them contrary to what they may see in the |